Bread Fail

I have written before about loaves of bread that did not turn out well.  I had another one recently with a 100% whole wheat loaf.  I knew immediately when I added the water that I had over-hydrated the sponge.  I could've added more flour, but I decided to let it go and see how it turned out.

It was an epic mess.  First, when I put it on the counter to fold it and put it in the proofing basket it was very sticky, fell apart, and was like trying to form oatmeal (cooked oatmeal, that is).  It left a mess in the proofing basket.  It went into the casserole dish and spread out like liquid sludge.  And when it came out of the oven, it was flat.

Shown in the first picture is the flat loaf next to a cut-open normal loaf that's 50/50 white/whole wheat.

Shown next is the reverse:  the cut-open flatbread loaf next to an uncut 50/50 loaf that rose normally.  As you can see, the one that was over-hydrated is pretty flat but not impossible to work with.

I have been using it for sandwiches, albeit fairly small oval ones, and  the bread's flavor is okay.  It's a very dense loaf, so even though the slices are small, they're filling.

Usually with whole wheat, more water is needed than for an equivalent amount of white flour.  The heirloom wheat seems to not absorb as much water, even when ground fairly fine, so it doesn't require as much as King Arthur or Gold Medal whole wheat flour.  It's a constant learning curve, but I know what consistency I'm shooting for with the initial sponge that will yield good results in the finished product.

Patching Clothes

This topic probably doesn't require much description. When I get small tears in clothes--usually jeans--I try to patch them.  My mother used iron-on patches, which didn't really work very well.  They came off after a while.

There are a few caveats when it comes to patching.  Using similar cloth is a good idea, and there's the whole 'new patch on an old garment' caveat.  I have some well-washed denim that I cut from something else long ago, and cut squares off that.  I have some pocket material I use to patch holes in pockets in my jeans.

Some rips aren't really fixable, but the knees--a frequent spot for holes--are doable.

Shown is the inside of a recent repair.  I usually go around the perimeter of the patch, then back and forth across the interior.  My technique is pretty slow, primitive, sloppy, and painful, but it generally works.  I do use pins to attach the patch while sewing, but don't use anything to hold the base garment under tension so it doesn't flex. That will be obvious in the pictures below.

Here's the other side--shown also is the offender who necessitated the patch in the first place.  I was walking my dog--a Great Pyrenees--who saw another dog.  She pulled very hard on the leash at the wrong time and I went down.  Although I outweigh her 2:1, she pulled it off, so to speak.  That's the only time it has happened, but it shredded the jeans and the knee underneath.

After the first wash, this is how the patch looks:  I snipped some of the loose threads that weren't tacked down before washing.

In sheer cost-effectiveness terms, it probably isn't worth 30 minutes' worth of work to repair a tear in a pair of pants that didn't cost much to begin with (I don't buy nice jeans; they typically cost around $10-$20).  However, that argument could be applied to many home crafts (e.g., much canning, as discussed elsewhere on this blog).  Keeping something in use a while longer with a minor repair counts as an accomplishment on some level.

Update:  "a while longer" has lasted three years, and counting: see this follow-up post.

Oatmeal Pie

There are a lot of recipes online for oatmeal pie--I can't find one that matches the recipe I use, but this one comes decently close.  Basically, it's just a pie with oatmeal plus sweeteners and eggs in the filling; ostensibly it was intended as a cheap substitute for pecan pie.  I got my recipe from Granny Miller, aka Katharine Grossman, who used to have a blog site but now has consolidated her blog postings into books (I have one and they're worth getting).

This recipe uses maple syrup as the primary sweetener--something wet is needed because the oats need to soften (FWIW, stick to quick oats--I tried old-fashioned once and they didn't really soften enough).  Sorghum or corn syrup will also work, but the maple syrup has a stronger flavor.

I started off with a swaged/cold-pressed crust.  This time I used coconut oil as the fat...the first time I have ever used it.  It's interesting stuff.  Solid at room temperature, but it liquefies at not too much higher temps.  I used a 50/50 mix of white and whole wheat flour, which is pretty typical.  As I have probably mentioned elsewhere, when I'm doing a crust this way I use more flour--about 1 1/4 cup usually.

The finished product looks a little rough because of the crust and not necessarily all that appealing but it has good flavor.  The pie below was entered into a Pi Day competition at work and it won (though admittedly there weren't many entrants).

It doesn't really taste like pecan pie to me.  I think when I used sorghum one time it did so more.  It has almost a pumpkin spice essence to it because of the cloves.  But almost everyone liked it.

Proofing Bread in Cold Weather

As I have noted elsewhere, in the winter I keep the house a little cooler than in the summer.  This slows down the process of dough rising.  I've read in various places that putting the dough in the oven and leaving the light on can help; recently I have decided to try it.

I have a couple of traceable thermometers and put one in with the dough.  It takes a while, but the inside did eventually warm to about 75 degrees.  That's plenty warm enough.  This is how the dough looked after about 12 hours:

Although it rose a lot, I still got good results in the oven:

Interestingly, I have another oven that has a 'bread proofing' setting.  I don't know how hot that gets it but it can't be too much...at any rate, it seems that it's unnecessary.  It's also possible to buy bread proofers, which might work well if time is a factor.  I'm usually looking at a 10-12 hour period, however, since I bake no-knead bread, so just the heat from the incandescent appliance light works well enough.

Moss Moment

There is almost no substance whatsoever to this post.

In the area where the bleeding hearts (planted) and jewel weed plants (volunteer) are, there's also some moss.  It's an area that never gets direct sun.  The winter has been drier than normal, but wet enough for the moss to flourish.  At this point, it's looking pretty lush.

The phone also takes pretty good macro pictures--not as good as my dedicated camera with a macro lens, but it's still not bad.

The bleeding hearts, however, are not looking lush.  As noted previously, they have declined with time and drought conditions, and at this point if I want them to stay I'll have to replant.  The jewel weed, also hit hard by drought a year and a half ago, is starting to bounce back.

Another Seal Failure with a Reusable Canning Lid

As I noted previously, I have had a higher seal failure rate with reusable lids than with single-use lids.  Also as noted, most of the failures have been slow to develop: the lid seals initially, then comes unsealed in storage days or months later. Ball, albeit with an unavoidable conflict of interest, points out that the vacuum strength can deteriorate 50% within a year.  That does match my experience. 

It has happened again.  I am no longer using reusable lids on new canning projects, but do still have some in storage.  A jar of peach preserves put up in July, 2016, was sealed from that time until sometime in the last month or so. I had checked it periodically and it was fine, but now it's not. Alas.

Turkey Red Wheat

I've long been intrigued by Turkey Red wheat.  It was the predominant variety grown in the mid- and southern plains during the dust bowl; seed stock from Russia brought to this country in the late 1800s also contained seeds of the Russian thistle, aka tumbleweed.  It's not common today but both wheat berries and flour are readily available if you look for them.

I got both flour and berries.  I used the flour a year ago and thought it was rather coarsely ground.  Now that I've ground some of my own, I think it's more just that Turkey red has a thicker hull, giving the flour a gritty, almost sandy texture.  It also takes less water to hydrate it than commercial red whole wheat flour (such as King Arthur).

My first loaf was my basic recipe of 2 cups white bread flour, 1 3/4 cups of whole wheat.  It turned out okay.  It didn't have a whole lot of spring to it, but it was certainly decent and had good flavor.

Next I tried a 100% whole wheat loaf, and I went all the way--nothing but whole wheat, water, sourdough starter, and a little salt.  No vital wheat gluten (VWG).  The loaf I got from that mix was definitely a little compact.

Shown below is the blended loaf on the left with the 100% loaf on the right.

 Cutting open the 100% loaf yielded this:

All in all it's okay. It may be harder to get a nice spring when using Turkey Red compared to a modern red wheat, or the results above may just be due to the random variation I see in the loaves I bake.  I'm nothing if not inconsistent.  The second blended loaf turned out like this--very nice:

Here's another 50% loaf (right) versus the 100% loaf (left).  The contrast is starker with this one because the 50% one rose well and had good oven spring.

I might try another 100% loaf with some VWG added in to see what happens, or I may stick with the basic de facto 50/50 combo.  Other things like pancakes and biscuits are probably in the offing, as well.