I lately obtained a 25 Kg bag of Pasini Millebolle panettone flour, and this was the primary check. The panettone is a straightforward variation on my ordinary method, meant to evoke a Danish pastry with pecan and apple. I added cardamom along with vanilla bean, plus quite a lot of inclusions totaling roughly the load of flour within the recipe.
I keep two lievito madre starters, one for Shokupan and one for Panettone. The panettone one is significantly older, and behaves in a different way in various methods. I’m able to take it out of storage and have a extremely energetic LM in two or three days, whereas the Shokupan starter is much less aggressive but additionally extra sugar tolerant. Right here is the panettone LM on day two:
I’m additionally discovering that ambient fermentation works fairly nicely whereas in upkeep mode on the LM. Simply previous to a bake, one or two heat refreshes assist set up the leavening traits that may go to work within the panettone course of.
Lately I re-watched an attention-grabbing presentation by Michael Ganzle, the place he mentioned the aggressive setting in SD starters, confirming the worth of constant, long-term refreshments. Nevertheless for house bakers, this sort of steady feeding is inconvenient and costly, so discovering cyclical equilibrium is vital. This LM has turn into rather more steady over the past yr regardless of durations of refrigeration. It does oxidize and lose energy if left greater than two weeks in storage, however will be revived.
For the primary dough, I used 3/4 panettone LM and 1/4 Shokupan LM. This was to attempt to assist insure staying in a “secure” zone for pH after the in a single day fermentation. Different components embody hydration, temperature, and sugar saturation within the dough.
This dough stayed proper on the trajectory and tripled in 12 hours. Temperature was 23C till the final two hours, after I elevated it to 26C. The pH was 4.79, which I’ve discovered is appropriate for my course of. Dough was robust with plenty of gluten growth.
The Millebolle flour blended very nicely and the second dough got here collectively rapidly. Since this was my first check, I used to be conservative with hydration, however I’m assured that subsequent time this may be elevated. The dough dealt with extraordinarily nicely in any respect levels, and rounded nicely within the pans.
The most important shock is how rapidly the ultimate rise went. It was underneath 4 hours, and really rose a bit an excessive amount of within the pans earlier than baking, resulting in some “mushrooming”. Nevertheless, the loaves had dramatic oven spring, very passable!
These are 1 Kg loaves in paper pans that are 6 5/8” in diameter. They’re scaled at 1050g per loaf.
The loaves turned out mild, excessive and moist, extraordinarily shreddy, with delicate taste and plenty of pecans.
I might advocate the Pasini Millebolle flour to anybody inquisitive about brioche baking or different lengthy fermentation baking. It has a noticeably higher power than different flours I’ve used, whereas additionally being a very good base for lievito madre.
