Baked By Bear Sourdough

Twice-baked Sourdough Almond Croissants

First attempt at making twice-baked Almond Croissants.

I got the idea, recipe (below) and method from my All About Croissant book. It’s the croissant featured at the very top of the cover. Mine looked similar.

I didn’t have enough almond flour (powder) to make the full almond cream recipe (nor did I have enough croissants!). I decided to make only five.

Unfortunately, when I made the cream I forgot the eggs sitting behind my bowl. It looked a bit dry so I added water to get the consistency to pipe. THEN I saw the eggs! Oops!

I added the eggs and some AP flour to stiffen it a bit. Bad idea! It kind of Jake’s and ran off the top taking a bunch of the almond slivers with it!

I’ll do better next time. Nothing that a bunch of powdered sugar can’t resolve!

That said, the scraping left in the pan were delicious. I’m expecting these to taste good regardless.

Basically, the recipe calls for slicing day-old croissants in half, slathering both halves with rum syrup, piping almond cream between and on top, adding sliced almonds then baking. Sprinkle powdered sugar on after they are out and cool.

Glad Sunday calories don’t count!

RECIPE

Sourdough Croutons

A warm oven and week old sourdough is a perfect opportunity for making croutons!

Simply cut them up, toss in olive oil and seasoning and pop into oven to dry out after baking the bread for this week.

Actually turned oven on a bit to make sure they got nice and crispy.

Really a great way to use leftover bread from last week’s bake!

Whoa! Something is Wrong!!

Yikes!! Something is off horribly!

These are sad, sad loaves!!

These loaves had limited, if any blooming at all.

I suspected that this might be the case because when I put the dough into bulk ferment on Friday evening it just didn’t feel right.

Possible issues:

Weak Starter
Poor strength in shaping
Slash was incorrect/too deep
Any or all of the above

Weak starter is my hypothesis (with a secondary cause around shaping)

I normally feed my starter with a 50/50 mix of strong bread flour and whole wheat. I’m burning through some off-brand whole wheat flour I picked up during the “great COVID-19 flour shortage“. That may be affecting my starter.

Anyway… the first sting I’m going to do is feed my starter a couple times and see if I can get it more “active”. Then to bake some more loaves. If that doesn’t work I’m going to redo my 50/50 mix with the King Arthur Whole Wheat flour and get my starter conditioning to it again.

Challenges, challenges…

Sourdough Danishes

After my last attempt at danishes I thought I’d try some different varieties.

I used fresh fruit with the same cream cheese filling. I also used Nutella and almonds for the others.

I’m pleased with results!

I’ll have to continue experimenting (and biking more on the Peloton)!

Sourdough Cherry-Cream Cheese Danishes

Oh these are sooooo sinful!!

Lately I’ve been thinking about what other pastries I can make with my laminated dough. I decided I’d try to make danishes.

The only difference in the dough is that I laminated with two letter folds as opposed to a book fold and a letter fold (9 layers of butter vs 12 for my croissants).

I cut my rolled out dough into 12 x 5” squares. These I cut/shaped last night and let rest in the fridge overnight.

Pastries shaped one going into fridge overnight

I didn’t prove these as long as I do my croissants which are rolled. I only put these in the proving bags on my counter for four hours.

I made a cream cheese filling (recipe below) and topped them with pie cherries. Egg washed. Baked them for 14 minutes at 385°F (convection). Glazed with apricot jam out of the oven. Let cool. Eat!!

These are a keeper!

I can branch off this method into all sorts of filling combos! I’m REALLY excited to try some different danishes in the near future!

Cream Cheese Filling Recipe

8oz Cream Cheese (room temp)
4T sugar
1t Vanilla Extract
1/4t Almond Extract
4T Lemon Juice

Stir together all ingredients with a fork to get most of lumps out. Whisk smooth. Fill pastries with about a Tablespoon each.

Using Leftover Laminated Dough

“Heaven forbid there should ever be such things!” you cry!

For the record I did too. I hated going to all this effort making laminated dough only to cut my croissants and have some scrap. Aggghhh! Total foul!! I’d think.

Well, my solution of late is to roll the scrap pieces together and put them out to prove when I cut/roll my croissants.

My recipe makes 10 large croissants and I’ve scrap on both ends that volume-wise is about a croissant worth of laminated dough.

For me I just. Cannot. Waste. It.

Well they come out pretty nice AND I’ve started to glaze them with a bit of apricot jam.

Tasty!!

I’m pretty pleased with this technique. No need to scrap 1 equivalent for every five croissants I bake!

(Inadvertent) Sourdough Proving Experiment

Ok … yet another (inadvertent) experiment on my sourdough bread proving method.

The experiment was prompted by my company having an all-weekend virtual offsite (aka Zoom marathon)

I followed my normal method and had my bread going into a cold bulk ferment Friday evening.

Saturday was a full day and not my normal pattern. I ended up forgetting to split / shape my bread in the evening after a 24 hour ferment. In fact, I didn’t even think about it until I’d already gone to bed.

I didn’t get up. My wife’s response was “New experiment…it will be fine regardless”

I got up this morning. Split the dough and preshaped. Let it bench rest for 30 minutes or so and then final shaped and put into the bannetons.

I preheated my Dutch Ovens and after about 90 minutes scored and put into bake.

Whoa! HUGE oven bloom (compared to last week for sure)

Very interesting (and pleasing) result! I’m going to continue with this method going forward!

Always learning…

Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls

Thought I’d make some Sourdough Cinnamon rolls today doing a riff off the King Arthur Cinnamon Roll recipe.

We had some friends coming over after church and I thought I’d make some to share. That way I’d not have too many left and eat them all myself!

My riff was adding 35g of my sourdough starter to the recipe. I also added sultanas (golden raisins) to the filling and cream cheese to the icing recipe. Other than that it was straight out of the King Arthur recipe.

Overall they came out AWESOME!

Once baked I basted them with a bit of butter and let them cool. Once cooled the icing went on.

They didn’t last long!

The pic at the top is the last of the 8 rolls made!

I’ll certainly do these again.

Bi-Color Croissants – 1st Attempt

Thought I’d try making bi-color croissants.

I saw this recipe and method from @booksforchefsofficial book “All About Croissants”.

This recipe / method is yeast-based, not sourdough. it is also something that looked like it could be completed in a day.

Let them prove about 2 hours and change. The yeasts dough proved faster (apparently) than the sourdough croissants I’m used to. The two hours was in line with the method instructions in the book.

The first tray baked a bit faster than usually. Normally I’ve been baking at 385°F (convention) for 14 minutes. This profile baked the bottom a bit more than desired. I dialed back the temp 20 degrees and then watched the bake past 12 minutes.

It was fun to try a new recipe/method.

UPDATE

Thinking next time I’ll need to let them prove longer like I do my sourdough croissants. The interior was tight and didn’t have as much lamination evident. Patience Bear! Patience.

Sourdough – Trying Different Bulk Prove Method

Tried a new experimental with my bulk prove. Instead of my normal cold bulk for 24 hours I decided to bulk prove at 79°F in my proving box, shape then pick up my normal process again (e.g. cold retard in fridge overnight and bake the next morning)

It was an experiment…

Here is how the dough looked after the final mixing of the salt into the dough. This was 30 minutes after I had mixed in the levain (start of my bulk ferment).

I let the dough go about 3 hours. It was later in the evening and it had already doubled in size.

Dough after 3 hours bulk ferment in proving box

I divided the dough after pouring it onto my counter.

Here is where I may have fallen down in the process. Instead of preshaping into rounds, resting for 20-30 minutes and then finally shaping into the bannetons I shaped and went straight to the bannetons.

Covered and going into cold retard overnight

Hindsight: Thinking I didn’t build the requisite strength along the outside.

Baked per my normal routine the next day. The loaves had noticeable filling in the bannetons.

I slashed the loaves in two different patterns: an “S” and a regular lengthwise.

I baked them excited for the reveal… I was a bit underwhelmed (kind of like the blooming).

The bloom, as mentioned, was “not so much”. Internal temperature was 206°F so fully baked (I am for over 200°F). No “ears” to speak of, some dimples and good color. I did notice the telltale “molding” of the perimeter caused by the baking parchment in the Dutch Ovens.

My overall hypothesis at this point is that I had an issue (impatience) in my shaping. Next time I’ll try to remember to do that better. I’ll update this post with a crumb cross-section pick once the loaves cool.

Always seeking to learn and get better / more consistent by pushing boundaries and variables.

UPDATE

Crumb is a bit tighter than normal (as expected). A larger bloom would have had a more loose crumb.