Plumluvfoods on WICC ep 67 Bread

We chat ll about making bread at home with some cheffy tips and science!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Oh my God, come in number.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Stall in a world of sound.

Speaker 3 (00:05):
Chef Pull on the mic making hearts pound Jeff Jeff
Brown a shotguns my son, Chef Dead in the background
making new beats down.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
So girls the peace they.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
Must do any night. Dry conversation song the day Life
from Bull Meat Tissues, street book store signs, These Chef
Springs Mother, Two guys sing Sound a podcast Forever Chess

(00:43):
Jeff Beds a dock.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Verry conversation. So the Fast say.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
Sun on the knee, sheep Fum and the West.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
And the rest.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
Oh Friends, Happy Saturday.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
What's going on?

Speaker 1 (01:03):
It's Chef Plumb here on Plumb Love Foods right here
on the Voice of Connecticut WYCC. We are your culinary program.
That's right. We have to come on here and talk
about great food, great recipes, great restaurants all across the state,
and great food related topics. And it's not just me
and my friends. No, no, I am joined by a
legendary chef in his own right.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
He is my co host.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
He is a producer on this program. He is also
a gentleman who has some of the best hair in
the entire culinary industry. But we're not allowed to talk
about hair. Not in the culinary world, of course, not
because he were was a hair in neet ladies. Gentle
chef Jeffie is here, Hey, buddy, what's going on.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
I'm doing amazing? Do you know what?

Speaker 1 (01:34):
I worked for MPR, The wonderful Marisol Castro and I
did our show called Season Together, and she would always
start to show what talking about my hair? Because I
had blue hair at the time, and she would always
common to how beautiful my hair looked and how nice
it looked, and it was. It was thirty five seconds
of banter between her and I, back and forth, and
we would get reamed out every day we did a
show together, Like you got to stop talking about hair.

(01:55):
No one cares about their hair. No one cares. And
I'm like, guys, we are real people. We were having conversations.
I mean, you know you've heard stories not stopping me
doing working on the MPR. This is part of this
is one of the dumb things I dealt with.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Yeah, well, you know, everyone has a vision. They don't
always line up. You got to just keep it moving.
We're doing great, Yeah, I guess so. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Listen, bottom lines an we're much happier here because you know,
we get to talk about food in a real way
with real chefs and real stuff. And you know, today's
gonna be a fun show too, because listen, you know
what became super popular during the pandemic bread and I
thought that we should talk about bread some and you said,
you know what, You're right, we should talk more about bread.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
So let's do a whole show.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
On bread and making bread at home, the basics of bread,
What does it take to make bread?

Speaker 2 (02:37):
And can you do it? Is it hard to do?

Speaker 1 (02:38):
Is there a white bread difference than sour dough? Is
a chabada different than the ficasha? Well guess what they are?
And we're gonna tell you all about it today on
Plumbla Foods.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
Jeffrey break it down. We're gonna break it down.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
Yeah, yeah we are, Yeah we are, and friends, we
can't wait to Currently, this program is pre recorded, and
we're sorry to tell you it's pre recorded because jeff
and I are currently on an adventure in Cosa Blanco
and Morocca Rocco in the Canary Islands. So we're very
excited about But one of the things I want to
talk about, just for a moment here is that he
and I both got nervous about going to different countries,
so we got metaglasses, which apparently translate for you as

(03:11):
we're you know, going through all the countries and hearing
as people talk. Have you tried the translation thing yet, Jeffy,
I have a little bit at work, and it's you know,
it's good. It does the job, right, Yeah, it definitely
does the job. I can't wait for us to get
back and tell more stories about this. And we're hoping
to have some recordings and stuff and do a whole
show just on our cruise and talking about the food
of you know, different places.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
It should be pretty fun. Oh dude, I'm so I'm
so excited. I'm so excited. We're gonna have a great time.
I'm sure we're having a great time right now while
you guys are listening to this show. We are deep
in our adventures, all right.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
We're gonna listen to this on the boat though. When
we're we're on the cruise show, we're gonna listen to
this show. I'm gonna put it on and let the
people know, Hey, look this is our show. You can
hear it. They're gonna be like Oh, that's amazing. I
can't wait to do that. It's gonna be pretty fun.
But we're talking bread, and Jeffy, how much experience do
you have making bread? And it's a two part question.
Experience now, an experience before the pandemic.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Well, one of my earliest culinary jobs pizza making. Learned
dough there when I came home from college. You know
how I can baffle them with my brilliance. I told
somebody I was a baker from birth. And I got
a job at a health food store bacon bread like.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
Health bread, like healthy ber, like gluten free breads and
stuff like that, not gluten free, but.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
Like alternative flowers like you know, millet and whole wheat
flowers and sour doughs. And I had no idea, and
I was just like, oh, do you have any recipes?
And they gave me their book of recipes and I
went home and studied them and went back in and
I went in at three o'clock in the morning, like
two hours before anybody else got there to teach myself.
And then the lady who ran the deli came in

(04:50):
and was like, he're a mess. You need a hand,
And she like, actually, taught me how to make bread,
and from that point on I was baking and I
loved bread.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
And one day, yeah, it.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
Was about a week. It took me and then I
turned the whole bread thing around that Pikashua was banging
when I was there.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
Well, it's funny because I think about bread making it
it seems very scientific, and I guess it kind of is.
But the essence of bread is not. It's not hard.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
It's not a lot of ingredients.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
It's not like it. It doesn't take a lot of
talent to make bread. I don't think.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
Well, I think it takes a lot of patience is
what it takes. It takes and a good digital scale,
a great digital scale. And I think you have to
trust the process with bread.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
Right it definitely trust the process, no doubt about it,
because I think that makes a big difference with it.
But the patience is the most important part. But I
think when it comes to bread, for me, I think
you master one and then you can do more. And
you know, make no mistake, friends, pizza dough is bread
and you can do a lot with a pizza dough. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
Absolutely, it's a basic dough. It's a it's a right.
You know, it's like one of the one of the
most simplest. You can throw it together, no problems.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
At all, piece of cake. Let's talk about some basics
of bread to kind of set the table for the
entire show here and what we're gonna do. And you know,
I mean basically bread is simple flour, water, yeast, and salt. Right,
I mean, yeah, am I missing anything?

Speaker 2 (06:04):
I mean sometimes a little oil, but I mean you
don't need oil, right, you know, I mean these are
the basic things I think you would need, right, very
very very simple.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
And you know, yeast you can get from the grocery store.
You can get those little seven gram packets of yeast, which,
by the way, they are seven grams, all of them.
They have the rapid rise, they have the regular there's
not really a big difference in all of them. They
also have fresh yeast. Jeffie tell us a difference between
fresh yeast and a dry yeast you buy in those
little packets.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
Well, first of all, fresh yeast is perishable, so it
has a very short I wouldn't say a super short,
but a much shorter shelf life than dry yeast. You know,
is shelf stable and it lasts I don't know. I
think years right. Fresh yeast is a moist kind of cake,

(06:54):
like a little block, like a little a little block. Yeah,
and so usually you have it's like you have to
add like three times the fresh yeast to what you
would add dry yeast because it's a it has more flavor,
but it has less.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
Properties. Well, let's talk about what YaST does. So what
yeast does, I don't have to cause leavening. It's it's
first of all, it's called the natural leavening process. It's
one of the processes of levening. It's chemical and natural
chemical being what you use baking powder for and basically
both the same thing. You want both these things to
produce carbon dioxide. So when yeast eats sugar, its byproduct

(07:31):
is carbon dioxide. So to make it sound really gross,
but it's down to earth. The yeast eats the sugar,
when it poops, its carbon dioxide, and the carbon dioxide
causes the bubbles and causes the dough to enhance and leaven.
That's what it does. That's what leavening process is. So
when you have yeasts like that, you know, I always
thought it was the opposite until you just said that,
Like with fresh yeast, you need to use less fresh yeast,

(07:53):
and because you woul think it'd be more potent, but
Jeff's right, you have to use more fresh yeast as
composed to dry yeast. Do you have a preference? Uh?

Speaker 2 (08:06):
I learned with fresh east. M The pizza dough that
we used to make was always cake east. A lot
of bakeries use cake east fresh east.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
I think there's definitely a flavor difference.

Speaker 1 (08:21):
Yeah, for sure, for sure. I don't know if it's
a big difference. Then, like for the home baker, I
would just stick with the packet YaST first to start.
Just start with that because it's pre measured. It's seven grams.
You know how much you're getting. And we keep saying,
I keep saying, Jeff doesn't, I keep saying grams and measured.
When it comes to baking, measurements are key. However, however,

(08:41):
any great chef will never use a one cup, a
two cups, a tablespoon. It's all done by a scale
and by weight. Right, if you think about like a
cup or a teaspoon or a tablespoon, those are all
volume measurements. And here's the thing, you guys are gonna
believe this, but it's the truth. Get to and try it.
You'll see one cup measurement that I might have is
different than your one cup measurement. It's not by much,

(09:03):
but they're always off by a little bit. They're never
all the exact same, which is why chefs always tend
to use measurements that are done by weight. So you'll
see any great cookbook that's written by a great chef
or any of my chef Worthrow.

Speaker 2 (09:15):
Look look at all.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
These like bloggers out there and stuff. Now they're writing
recipes and they don't know what you're talking about. They
have no idea what they're doing. You know, use a
weight measurement. That's your first number one to know this
person knows they're talking about. Oh, I saw a box chef.
I'll try not.

Speaker 2 (09:30):
No, you're one hundred percent correct. I think most professional
bakers do everything by by weight. I tend to super lazy.
Sometimes I like to do stuff by eye. You know,
you can do it a long time, So I love
to like like I kind of know around what I'm well.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
I think once you've done it a bunch more importantly,
you know what it's supposed to feel like. You know, Yeah,
that makes sense and.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
Sound like, and I mean it's fun it's funny. When
I learned how to bake, I learned that you bake
with all your senses. You have to like keep your
nose out when things are in the oven. You have
to listen to the bread when it's mixing and the
mixer to hear when the gluten like is engaged and
ready to be could. Yeah, uh, you know, you have
to feel it. You have to touch it with your
hands and feel the stickiness of it, and the and

(10:17):
the you know, the hydration of the dough and all
that stuff. I mean, there's just so many important things.
It's really a full and we're gonna cover that.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
We're gonna jump into that a little bit too, and
talk about how that happens. I think it's important to
talk about that because we're talking about auto lease and
all the other things that can happen with bread does. However,
sticking with the yeast part of it here, we've talked
about dry, we've talked about fresh. You can also make
a sour, right, which is the other type of yeast
you can do, which is yeast that's collected from your environment. Right,
So the way to do that you're gonna take a

(10:47):
little bit of flour and water, mix it together. And
for me, I put it into a little mason jar
and leave it open. I literally put it outside and
let it sit for an hour, and it collects these
microscopic natural yeats that are in the air, which then
can thrive and they like we've already established the yeast
eat sugar. There's natural sugars in the flour and it
becomes the sour. And that's where sours come from. Now

(11:08):
you have people who have done this, and now here's
the thing. When you have a sour, you have to
feed it. You know, you can get by without feeding
it a couple of days, but you have to feed it.
And feeding it means adding more flower, more water to it,
taking scoop it some out, adding more to it. It's
called the discard. You take them the discard of the
sour out and you can add more to it to
make more. However, one of the things that people I
don't I think in general, don't know is that you
can actually put your yeast to put your sour to sleep,

(11:30):
and you can put it in the frigerator and it'll last.
It'll last forever in the frigerator. When you're ready to
use it again, break it out, let it warm back up,
add a pinch of flour to it, and it'll wake
right back up. Which is kind of interesting. Do you
guys do at your house, Jeff, I know your wife
makes sour dough and by the way, sours what used
to make sour dough? Sorry?

Speaker 2 (11:45):
Yeah, my wife's an avid sour dough maker.

Speaker 1 (11:47):
House bread is good.

Speaker 2 (11:49):
Yeah, her. I think her bread's fantastic. She makes a
few different sized loves. She does a lot of inclusions.
She does a lot of cool stuff. She actually her
sour dough starter came from her friend and MAUI like
shipped it to her. Oh interesting, yeah, and then like
she uh she started it up. Actually read you can
dehydrate sour dough starter. Oh really and then rehydrate it.

Speaker 1 (12:11):
And that sounds like that was like getting deep now Yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:14):
No, it's it's just like a wild process of like
something you could you could like literally let it dry out,
grind it up, and then rehydrate it.

Speaker 1 (12:21):
And add it to your makes sense. We have dry yeast,
That makes sense.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
Absolutely. It's it's kind of a neat thing.

Speaker 1 (12:27):
So I thought it was really cool to make sour
and use that for my breads now sometimes like the
sour isn't going to be as potent of eleven or
as a dry yeast packet the seven gram yet dry
yeast packet you get. But it does work, and you
know it has to take some time, but I love
it because it's I feel like it's a really natural
way to leaven bread a very like like you're using
the YaST from your surrounding. It's like for me, I
got really into it thinking like, oh, this is the

(12:49):
stuff from like you know, my house, Like I have
a giant field next to me, and like I just
think of all like the the yeast strands and stuff
like that that's there, like now part of that that
that sour that I have. But just you know, I
mean mine's only a little over a year old probably
at this point, and you know, I do a good
job of cleaning it out and every now and then,
like just cleaning the sides of the jar and make
it look normal. And you have some people who use
their entire sour and then like we'll scrape down the

(13:10):
sides and build it up again, like they won't like
refill it, which is interesting to pull it right of
the fridge and just wake it up and put them
in there and then put it back in the fridge.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
It's it's, it's it's kind of a there's a there's
a there's like I said, there's a process behind it,
but there's so many different ways to kind of get
to the end process, and it's not always exactly the same.
Like everybody has like their own little like tricks to it,
you know, when you get it. The sour making, you know,
like there's there's so many people who swear by this starter,
and they swear by you know, keeping in the fridge,

(13:39):
keeping on the counter right, keeping it in a cabinet,
you know. Like I've heard so many different things, you know.
I know a guy who keeps all his sour doughs
in the basement, you know, because he thinks look cool,
temperature darker, you know, and.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
It's like, you know, he's like, no, trust me. You know,
it's like we'll speak the temperature, bringing it up. Temperature
and hydration are two very very important things when making
bread right, and temperature itself was also a big deal.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
Now.

Speaker 1 (14:01):
I used to make pizza dough and not really care
that much about the temperature of my water when I
was doing it, but I've definitely changed my thinking on
that process now. I think it makes a big, big difference.
And same thing with you know, the the uh the hydration,
the amount of water that comes in there, and I
think that's something you have to play with on its own.
But you know, for you, Jeff, when it comes to hydration,
we talk about percentages like this is about you know,

(14:22):
eighty percent hydrated whatever you know, Can you explain that process,
because I think that's what you've done to me before,
and it's a really the way you explain is really good.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
Well, this is where weights come in really handy, and
it's basically you know, the ratio of water to flower
too you're dry and all by weight, all by weight
and uh so like for me, So for instance, the
pizza dough is, say it's a thousand grams or flower

(14:52):
and I want it to be sixty five percent hydration
fifty grams of water and then I would have at
the at the end of that it would be a
sixty five percent hydrated dough. And people go all the
way up. I've heard of ninety percent hydration. Does a
lot of fakasha does are really rightly wet.

Speaker 1 (15:13):
Well. I think what's interesting about the way you just
said that, though, is how you kind of speak baker
to other bakers. You know, if I'm like, oh, I'm
making a pizza dough and it's sixty five percent hydration,
like now, they kind of know how you make your
dough at least the basics of it.

Speaker 2 (15:26):
Oh. Absolutely. In fact, you know, we know a lot
of pizza makers and her crew, you know, Matt, Adam, yourself,
and when you guys come to my house for a party.
I think the last time Adam was there and he
was going to make the dough for us because I
needed you know, I was running around, Yeah, yeah, your
doughs wet, and he's like, you know, what do you do?
And I was like I run about sixty five seventy
and he's like, oh, you know, like you know, we

(15:48):
had this little about it. Thank you well. And the
reason I run it a little wetter, I mean is
because I use harder grains and uh well, also.

Speaker 1 (15:59):
To the hot oven is the dough should be a
little bit wetter so it doesn't like it doesn't like
char and destroy itself before it's even cooked in the middle,
like the higher the hydration, the quicker less of a
cook in the middle, I mean, the less fat, the
speed cooks. I'm trying to say, yes, I mean not
that it makes. It definitely helps a little bit though, So.

Speaker 2 (16:15):
It definitely helps with the aerration too, Like when it's wet,
it's bubbly kind of right, like really like the rise
and the bubbles you get from a wet dough are yeah,
really awesome. Like the structure is totally different from like
a less hydrated dough.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
Right, So let's talk a little bit too about the basics.
So we talked about the yeast and using flour and
so far was talking flow. We'll talking more different flowers later,
but we're just talking regular ap all purpose flower at
the moment.

Speaker 2 (16:41):
Pose.

Speaker 1 (16:43):
You know, we talked about the east with the water.
Now we've mixed them all together, right, and I think
a good tip and we can talk more tips later,
but a big tip for me is to always bloom
the yeast before you mix in your dry ingredients. And
blooming the east means I would mix the yeast with
the water and whatever a little bit of sweetener I
might put in there. Sometimes I put just it could
just be a tiny pinch of sugar or something just
to awake the yeast up and you know it's awake

(17:03):
and bloomed as they call it. When it starts with
foam in the water. Now it's time to add your
flower to it, Jeff, how do you feel about that?

Speaker 2 (17:10):
So when you're using fresh east, it's absolutely a huge
important step making sure it blooms and making sure you
see it sure you know, cloud up and you'll see
it grow as it eats, and that's when you know
it's really active. And it's important with fresh yeast because
fresh east can die in the fridge and if it's

(17:30):
not maintained properly, or if it gets too wet, or
if it's not like like some people will put it
in a plastic bag and sometimes that'll kill it. You know,
it's usually left in it's wrapped in kind of like
wax paper, so there's a little bit of air that
can get to it. So that's really important with fresh eeast.
But with instant and dry active yeast, it's actually ready
to go, Like as soon as it hits moisture, it's active.

(17:54):
It's it's really interesting and it's like I've bloomed it
forever too, because I learned with fresh east and then
multiple people have like showed me how it doesn't matter
at all. Yeah, like, oh that's really wild, Like I
never knew.

Speaker 1 (18:05):
That because you do get occasionally get a packet in
front of dry yas, so that doesn't work.

Speaker 2 (18:09):
Well, that's you know, which is why I bloom it.
That's exactly why I bloom it too. And it's really
important when you're buying your yeast at the grocery store.
It's not. I mean, now there's more avid bakers, but
I've definitely bought a yeast at a grocery store that's
not fresh.

Speaker 1 (18:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:23):
Yeah, it's been there a while, expires in two months
or something, right, right, whoa.

Speaker 1 (18:28):
But for me, I say, bloom it even if you
was an instant yeast, because then you can make sure
it's alive. You know, you can make sure it's woke up,
it's alive. It takes all of three and a half
four minutes. It's not a big deal.

Speaker 2 (18:38):
I'm just saying it's just one of those things. But
it's not necessarily I agree.

Speaker 1 (18:41):
No, No, I remember I pressed up with saying you
don't have to, Like I know you don't have to,
but like the the the science part of my.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
Culinary brain is like bloom the east to make sure
it works. Like I mean, I mean this is totally
it's not off subject. But like you know, in a
bread machine, it's all in one, you know, you just
dump it all in, jump everything in, right, and it
and those breads. I mean, you can cook, you know.
I mean, we can talk about that in a whole
other time. But we don't need a bread machine. Come on,
we can teach your bread machine.

Speaker 1 (19:07):
No, okay, right, bread machine is here.

Speaker 2 (19:10):
Look out.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
I found in friends the bread machines here there.

Speaker 2 (19:13):
It is all right.

Speaker 1 (19:15):
But yeah, so that's that's kind of an important part
of the process. And also so the mixing and kneading
I think is really important. And I think there's certain
types of bread, for instance, like a sour dough, make
sure you know what kind of bread you're making first,
because you know, you don't want to mix the heck
out of a sour dough bread. You don't want to
do that right. And there's a process that in a
lot of French baking called auto Lee's right, which is

(19:36):
when you kind of let the bread come together for
a minute first, so you start you mix it into
your flour, you mix it to your liquid and your
yeast mixture. You mix it in together, right and let
it just just kind of a shaggy mass. Let's sit
for fifteen minutes and then you mix it again.

Speaker 2 (19:51):
Yes, but you definitely uh to develop a gluten properly,
you need to make sure you're kneading it.

Speaker 1 (19:59):
Oh yeah, yeah, we're gonna get there too, knating and
folding and flipping. But to start that auto these process
makes a big difference. It helps that hydration get worked
in more. It's it's a great thing to do. I mean,
you know, from a culinary school graduate and working in
you know, being taught the French basics of doing this,
that's what you do.

Speaker 2 (20:15):
You always auto least your bread.

Speaker 1 (20:17):
But not everybody does that. That's the best thing about bread.
There's no right or wrong. There's just making bread, and
what's right or wrong is the end product.

Speaker 2 (20:23):
Yeah. Oh and every bread has a different process.

Speaker 1 (20:26):
Proofing. We gotta jump. It's gonad to break here in
a minute a half. But proofing very important.

Speaker 2 (20:30):
Let it proof.

Speaker 1 (20:32):
This is the patient's part of it. Let it proof.
We want to double in size, right, Jeff, you can
proof it in the refrigerator. You can prove that takes longer.
You can proof it in a sew. One of my
tricks is I always preheat my oven to it when
I'm making bread to one fifty kill it, and then
put my bread in there and let it proof in
the warm oven.

Speaker 2 (20:48):
Yeah, I think I like in a breadproofer if you
have it, like yeah, Well, And the thing is, you
can make a breadproofer if you have just like a
a small box or something like a cooler. You can
do it in with like a heating pad because it's
only like seventy five degrees. Oh yeah, oh yeah, I
actually have a wireless heat pad, you know, like up

(21:10):
for your back, and I'll throw it in a cooler
and I'll put the dough on.

Speaker 1 (21:13):
It's a good idea, and.

Speaker 2 (21:14):
I'll close it up and it proves perfectly. It's a
great idea.

Speaker 1 (21:17):
Sometimes you even pour boiling water into a small pan
and put it into your oven so it keeps some
moisture in there, and just put it right in there
on top of it and not in the water, but
the pan in there.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:25):
There's a lot talking about here with bread, Jeffy, And
it seems like we both love talking about bread, so
we gotta keep going at What I love is that
we got more segments to talk more bread, Jeffie. We're
talking proofing, we're talking baking, we're talking springing. What is
a window pane test? We're gonna talk.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
About that too.

Speaker 1 (21:38):
It's all about breads. You're on Plumblove Foods. And by
the time you finish the show, friends, you're gonna be
able to make a simple bread. I promise you it's
gonna be You're gonna be able to do it. Between
Jeff and I, we can teach you, right, Jeffy, Yeah,
we're ready. We're teaching you now. You're checking out Plumblove
Foods live right here the Voice that connect a WICC.
Stay right there, friends, We'll be right back with more bread.
Get your butter. Plumb Love Foods here on a Saturday.

(22:19):
What's happening, friends, it's your boy chef Plumb Chef Jeff
hanging out with you guys here on WI to see
the Voice of Connecticut and Jeffy. You know what what
I don't think they know yet. What if you missed
any part of this program, or you missed last week's program,
it's a great Taco Show. If you've missed any of
our shows, you can download them, jeff You can get
them anywhere, and guess what.

Speaker 2 (22:38):
They're free.

Speaker 1 (22:39):
It's free all kinds of audio entertainment, culinary knowledge. You
can break it down and learn all kinds of things
from this program. All you gotta do is go to
any place you get your favorite podcasts anywhere.

Speaker 2 (22:51):
Sorry for Plumb Love Chef Ye Plum.

Speaker 1 (22:53):
That's it and a doubt. You can find it. You
can download, you listen to it, you can listen to
it on demand, all the shows there, and of course
you can even tell your Amazon Alex you can tell
everything it all? Does it now, Jeffrey?

Speaker 2 (23:02):
All of it? You can probably say it's a meta Hey,
I think you're right. It meta play Plumb Love Foods
and it's gonna be like playing Plumb Love Foods. I'll
bet you're right.

Speaker 1 (23:10):
But it does that. I'll bet it will do that.

Speaker 2 (23:12):
I hope it does that. This week friends. Australian voice,
Oh do you really on your headphones?

Speaker 1 (23:18):
You can put on your glasses. You can pick which
voice to use.

Speaker 2 (23:20):
Yeah, I used the Australian English.

Speaker 1 (23:22):
Nice, that's hilarious. You know what a voice I used
which one, John Cena, that's amazing my voice, John, Really,
I could choose Aquafina. I was like, nope, John Cena,
I'll take John Cena, and I want to call it.
I want to be like, thank you, John Cena, but
it won't answer me yet. It hasn't got there yet.

Speaker 2 (23:38):
That hurts. I know what I really want to be together.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
I would be like, hey, John Cena, what am I
reading right now? I'm saying It would be hilarious, and
it would just be like, you're welcome, Chef Plum. You
can't see me, that's right.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (23:54):
I don't know. Anyway, you're checking out Plumb Love foods
right here at w I see the voice of Connecticut.
We're talking breads today.

Speaker 2 (23:59):
Friends.

Speaker 1 (24:00):
In the first block, we covered a bunch of the
bread basics, but one thing we didn't talk enough about
that we should jump into a little bit, Jeff, is
salt and what salt can do to your bread, how
important salt is in the recipe, and also how much
it can mess up your recipe. Jeff, you talk about
the importance of salt for me?

Speaker 2 (24:15):
Okay, Well, salt is important to bread dough for several reasons.
It enhances flavor. One. You know, we put salt in
everything because it's everything perfect thing right. It strengthens gluten.
It helps with the structure of the gluten because it
it kind of regulates the yeast. It doesn't allow the
yeast to get over blown.

Speaker 1 (24:35):
Out because salt because sometimes doesn't like if you put
too much salt in your yeast won't actually work that
well because it doesn't like the salt.

Speaker 2 (24:42):
Yes, but your yeast will still work if you put
a little bit in there. Sure, but it tempers the
yeast so it won't go blowing all out.

Speaker 1 (24:49):
You know, it won't go fast. It'll you said blowing
out and come close to your microphone. You say it
that you said blowing it out? What is blowing it
out mean? Just for people don't know what that means?

Speaker 2 (24:56):
Overproofing, right, and how do you know if it's overproofed,
it would it will triple in size, you know it'll
and or if you look at it funny, then hold
it's like a bubble popping right, or it'll collapse, yeah,
itself like it'll it'll blow up so much that it
can't hold its structure and then collapse.

Speaker 1 (25:14):
Down right right, or it gets so big that if
you even just look at it funny, the whole thing
just explodes and implodes and like it's falls down like
a pot balloon.

Speaker 2 (25:21):
Yeah, that's that's not good. You don't want it to
be that that blown out, right, Which is why you
see people who are bread bakers, who are like classic
bread bakery bakers, Like they get crazy. They're crazy people,
Like their hair is usually messed up, they usually don't
sleep very much.

Speaker 1 (25:34):
There are they're crazy people because they are dealing with
something that isn't While it's a lot of a science
involved with it, they're also dealing with living organisms and
like it can be mind boggling sometimes.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
Yeah, that's the thing about dough is it's absolutely alive. Yeah,
it's once you once you add yeast and salt and
flour and water, the magic it's just a live it's
it's all coming together and and and it's different every
time because of its environment. You know, if it's too
hot out, it's going to happen really fast. It's really

(26:09):
cold out, you're gonna have to put it someplace warmer
in the house. You know, there's like so many different things.
It's like it's like it's like having a like almost
like a like a like a child or a pet.
You're trying to you know, alive. You know, it's right,
It really fun. And when when it's into sour dough,
that's when it gets even crazier because you know you're
feeding it and taking parts away and giving people some

(26:30):
and you're trying to share it and you know, like
making stuff out of the discard. Could you start feeling
bad because you're throwing over away and you're like, oh,
I don't have time to bake my bread this week,
and I got to throw all this stuff out that
I made.

Speaker 1 (26:41):
And yeah, should we talk about sowardo? Sho we jump
in sour dough? Should we jump on quick easy dose?
Let's do quick easy dose and with a sour dough
like like, it's a craze right now, it's been a craze,
it's a pandemic. Let's talk about sour dough and what
it is and how to make it.

Speaker 2 (26:52):
We think the sour dough I think sour dough should be.
Maybe maybe next segment will go sour dough or this one.

Speaker 1 (26:57):
Okay, we'll go basics this time first. Okay, that's cool,
that's cool. We'll go, I said just the opposite basic.
Oh I thought I was repeating it. I'm sorry, no,
but no, I'm with it.

Speaker 2 (27:05):
Though I'm with it.

Speaker 1 (27:05):
It's fine, listen, that's why we're together on the show.
We can be different people on it. It's fine, Jeffy,
I don't like your idea, all right, No, No, I
think it's great. Jeffy has a great idea, all right now. No,
but no, So we'll talk about sourdos. We'll jump into
that next break, because sourdough is a thing and I've

(27:26):
just recently started learning that and jumping into it. I'n't
made sowardo since culinary school, and I've been doing it lately,
So we could talk into it a little bit more.
But I am making a lot of ficashas these days.
And I'm also making a lot of flatbreads and quick
breads and quick biscuits and that sort of thing these days.
So you know, Ficasha, I just for I work for
a company sometimes doing part time demo work where for

(27:47):
a company called Virtual VX, which which has like people
come on like a zoom call and like I'll work
with Google or with another big company. They come on,
they get a culinary lesson a cooking lesson, and they
get given the ingredients they cook along with me. So
my newest one I'm doing is actually a fikasha, which
I jokingly call it fake kasha. But it's a ficasha
breaks I'm making ficcasha in an hour, Jeffy, So what

(28:09):
do you call it fake?

Speaker 2 (28:09):
I don't understand, well, because I feel like it needs
a little bit more than an hour. So it's like
fake kasha, like you can you can pull it off
on it well kinda. So, but one of the things
I can do is, as we spoke before, you know
about you know how levening works. It's basically yeast eats
sugar and then creates carbon dioxie, which in turns what
leven's your dough, you know. And so what I do
is I overfeed the yeast quickly.

Speaker 1 (28:30):
So instead of giving the yeast a pinch of something sweet,
I give it a lot of something sweet, you know,
I like to give it a fair amount of sweetness.
And what happens is it goes crazy and creates a
lot of carbon dix I have from all of sweetness,
which doesn't affect the flavor of your dough because the
sugar gets eaten and it's not there anymore. It's not
present anymore because the yeast has now eaten it, you know,

(28:52):
and it creates the leavening process, which gets a knife
nice leavening on a dough in an hour, which is
pretty I mean, I think it's pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (28:59):
That's super cool. I was actually worried. I was like, well,
is it a sweet dough now that you've put so
much sugar in it? But I guess if it's all
being eaten if you're matching it with the yeast, right, right,
So it's it's again science.

Speaker 1 (29:11):
Yeah, it's science. I'll give you my quick quick recipe.
And like I said, we've talked to this before, it's
for ingredients. It's for ingredients, right. And then because I'm
making a picasia, I add olive oil to it to
give a little more power. So ill use one hundred
and twenty five grams of warm water to two hundred
and thirty five grams of bread flour. Okay, Now, you
could use ap flour here, which is what we talked
about so far, but bread flour is what I use here,

(29:34):
which you know, it's a little bit different than regular
AP flour or all purpose flour. But it's great for
making breads because it has a higher protein.

Speaker 3 (29:44):
Right.

Speaker 1 (29:44):
It's made from hard wheat, and it contains between twelve
to fourteen percent protein, which allows for the development of
jeffe high gluten. There you go, which you can develop
more gluten out of it, which is pretty freaking cool.
So yeah, So I'm doing one hundred and twenty five
grams of warm water to two hundred and thirty five
grams of bread fl which is roughly about sixty percent hydration,
which we learned about, right, which you think about the weights, right,

(30:07):
the weight of your water compared to the weight of
your flowers. How you measure your hydration. I'm gonna put
one packet of rapid rise yeast and then I use
you know, that's really about it. A little bit of
salt and that's all we use. And that's all you
need and it works fantastic. I mix it all up
like we said, I basically take that rise yeast at

(30:28):
about twelve grams of sugar to it, and we're ready
to rock and roll. That's it, Jeffie.

Speaker 2 (30:34):
I love. That's a super easy dough. Yeah, and it
works o. Not great.

Speaker 1 (30:38):
The biggest thing is letting it proof, like letting it
proof someplace warm. So it comes up. You basically want
to double in size and you pull it out. And
what I do is I dimple it. They call it.
Where I have it sitting in my pan, I take
my fingers and I wet my fingers gently and I
press down into the dough to create little divots in
the dough, which I then fill basically with I spray
it with olive oil and put some herbs on it.
And it's a while at it's fantastic. Bake it for

(30:58):
twenty minutes of four to twenty five easy, easy, easy dough,
But they're easier. Does you can make, Jeffy, I got
an easy one.

Speaker 2 (31:06):
You're probably not gonna believe me, because I know we
all call me seventeen step. Jeffy normally usually come in
with tons of stuff. But I have a dough. You
don't need it. You just mix it all together. You
put it in an oiled bowl. You let it sit
on the counter, and in three hours you can bake it.

Speaker 1 (31:26):
Three hours. Tell me about it.

Speaker 2 (31:27):
It's a peasant loaf, is what I was always taught
what it's called. And no weights with this. I just
did this all by This is how I've always done it.
One quart of flour a Deli container quart, so that's cups.

Speaker 1 (31:43):
So that the big plastic clear container that maybe get
like a large I drop soup comes in yep.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
So like a quart Deli container. And then I would
take a pint Deli container of warm water, like warm
to my hand, two cuts, which is about two cut
of water. I put two teaspoons of salt in there,
two teaspoons of sugar, one packet of yeast, and then

(32:11):
I let it. I just mix it up, let it sit,
and I take a I would put it in a
cast iron pan, or I would also do it in
a Sometimes I would do it in a like a
glass pyrex dish that oh yeah safe, just put it
in there. Oil it really good. I would probably put
like a quarter cup of oil in it, like pretty
heavy on the oil on the bottom. Put the dough.

(32:31):
Once it's like just mixed together into like you know,
it comes together. So it just comes together. Don't over
it comes together, don't overmix it. Just drop it in there,
put it on the counter, let it sit for three hours,
throw it in the oven, bake it how hot the
oven I would do it around three point fifty.

Speaker 1 (32:49):
Oh, okay, not even. And what about Peore doing convection?
Would you go a little less on that?

Speaker 4 (32:53):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (32:53):
Yeah, would probably go like three twenty five.

Speaker 1 (32:55):
Yeah, convection with a little less but yeah, and how's
the bread come out? What do you call it?

Speaker 2 (33:00):
I would call it a peasant loaf. And it looks
like a loaf of bread. It has a great structure,
it's like slices. It's like a you know, if you
do it, if you know, you got to get really fancy.
You can put a lid on it for a little
while and then take the lid off and you'll get
like a thicker crust on it.

Speaker 1 (33:14):
Oh I love it, Yeah, I love it. That's great.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
You can score the top of it, you know, drop
butter on it, you know whatever. It's such an easy
loaf of dough.

Speaker 1 (33:23):
You do anything with it.

Speaker 2 (33:24):
Yeah, yeah, it's super easy. You can leave it on
the counter honestly almost all day and then bake it
if you want to. But it's ready in three hours.

Speaker 1 (33:30):
Well, you know, we've also done for demos a little
bit different than a regular bread, but a biscuit still
technically a bread, but a little bit different than the
bread that we're talking about, you know, very similarly, I've
done a very similar bread using biscuits. And to make biscuits,
excuse me, and I do basically two to one yogurt
to self rising flour, and you put those things together,

(33:52):
let it hang out for a second, and then you
can just kind of fold it a couple of times.
Then you can make biscuits out of it and it
comes out I mean, listen, for a quick biscuit fantastic.
I mean, like, listen, my southern roots are telling me
that's not a biscuit. But if you need something quick
and you're trying to put something together fast for like
you know, I don't know, maybe you want a savory
dish or something to go with the savory dish or
one of the things you talked about, like serving with

(34:12):
something like foie gras or like like.

Speaker 2 (34:14):
A beautiful smoked ham. It works really really well.

Speaker 1 (34:17):
So two to one that's flour to self rising flour
to yogurt. And when I say yogurt, don't be like, well, chef,
can we put peach yogurt in it? Can we put
strawberry yogurt? Vanilla yogurt?

Speaker 2 (34:29):
Sure?

Speaker 1 (34:30):
But it's gonna be different. Just use non fat, plain
yogurt and it works great. That's all I would do
with it. It's very, very, very simple because basically self
rising flour to just to kind of you know, speaking
of flowers, I guess we're talking about the too. Self
rising flour is basically an ap flour or all purpose
flour with baking powder already mixed in or you know,
made with it, so it already has baking powder with it,

(34:51):
which by the way, is what's called a chemical leavening process,
which doesn't mean a bad thing because we hear chemicals
these days and I'm like, oh, it's terrible. It's not.
It just means that it's creating copper dioxide a different way.
Think about when you pour like like like vinegar and
baking story together, how it creates all his bubbles and
crazy stuff. When you used to make those like volcanoes
members of kids to make the volcano thing. Same thing

(35:11):
with self rising flour. You're adding acid to it and
creating the same bubbles. And the acid from my recipe
I just gave is malallactic acid from the exactly.

Speaker 2 (35:20):
Oh that's amazing. You know, it's funny because Yogurt's used
in so many doughs all over the place. Yeah, it
really is nan doo and like, uh is like the stuff.
You know, we got a Tandori oven a couple of
years ago. You were there, You've played with it with me, sure,
and uh. The nando is a yeast dough that you
put yogurt in. And I think that's like the fat

(35:41):
to the dough, which, like you know, oil sometimes is
really important to dough or fat like in a dough,
I think adds to the structure and the moistness of
the dough. Don't you agree?

Speaker 1 (35:53):
I completely agree. And I think that yogurt is one
of those unsung here when it comes to the culinary world,
you know, I think of like lemons and yogurt, Like
these are all things that people don't think about that
are you know, you could add lemon to something just
to raise the acid level, but not really add the
flavor of a lemon to it, which which works great.

Speaker 2 (36:12):
It's so crazy because I always take those things for granted,
Like I just feel like everyone should have those things
in their house, right for sure? Don't a few lemons
and yogurt because it's just like you can do so
much with them.

Speaker 1 (36:22):
We've talked about this before. You can even substitute sour
cream in any recipe for just use yogurt. And yeah,
use no fat yogurt works.

Speaker 2 (36:29):
Great, totally, totally. I use non fat yogurt for so
many things. It's what's wild.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
Yeah, we're talking about flatbreads a little bit there. I
think flatbreads all across the world is kind of a thing,
but everybody has a different name for them, which is
kind of fun, you know. I mean, like a flatbread
is a flatbread. It's nothing magical or mystical to it.
But you know, you know, I think about like, you know,
like we said before, I was talking about my ficationa
that's technically a flatbread, right, super simple olive oil all over,
high hydration dough, exactly what we're talking about. What about

(36:54):
a non you know you brought that up a second ago.
It's enriched with yogurt.

Speaker 2 (36:58):
It's same thing, right, yep, It's just it's just it's
it's almost I think it's like about a fifty five
hydration rate on that and uh, and then you add
the yogurt as part of that hydration rate, right you know,
so uh, it's like less water and then yogurt and

(37:18):
then uh, it works great. It's it's it's a you know, it's.

Speaker 1 (37:22):
No, it's such an easy thing to make. It's just
having the right cooking apparatus for it. And you know,
I think in a weird way, you can make that
same dough. You almost cook it on your grill. And
maybe it's not quite technically a non but like it
does kind of work the same way.

Speaker 2 (37:35):
All right, So not everyone has a tandor oven, but
of course then I would say most people don't have.
You if you have a weber, even a charcoal simple
weber and a cast iron pan, you could definitely throw
some noun that would be pretty delicious. And I mean

(37:56):
I wouldn't call it exactly traditional, but I'm sure we
could ask Prisad to try it and he would be like,
this is good enough totally.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
You know, it would come out great. You know, yeah,
I think you're right, and just take another step. I mean,
even like a peta bread, which I think is similar
to a non, right, it just cooks a little bit differently.

Speaker 2 (38:14):
So peeda is more like pizza dough really, and it's
just it's kind of treated differently in the sense that
you know, it's it's rolled out to a certain thinness
and then it's kind of cooked in a similar to
a pizza oven.

Speaker 1 (38:35):
You know, you kind of melt that fat out of it,
which makes it like right it it.

Speaker 2 (38:39):
I think it's the hydration in it. It's just like
you know, right right, do.

Speaker 1 (38:43):
You want that scene in the middle of it to
create the pocket you want?

Speaker 2 (38:45):
Yeah? So, like you think about pizza dough. If you
didn't put a topping on a pizza dough and you
just threw it in the oven, it would just bubble
all up, you know what I mean. If you threw
a small pizza dough that was six inches and you
put no topping on it and no oil on it
and threw it in there, it would bubble into a pillow.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
So it's about that like high heat on the outside.

Speaker 2 (39:08):
On the outside, and so it's it's really it's it's
important to have a hot deck oven. Now you don't
cook it as hot as a pizza. Like you know,
a pizza you might cook it seven hundred degrees or
six fifty or something like that. This ye're looking for
more like I would say, like four seventy five, five
fifty tops.

Speaker 1 (39:25):
See, you gotta be careful if you're talking about pizzas
and the degrees that cook pizzas, and people are gonna
that's polarizing. People are like, well, I cook my nine hundred.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
Yeah, well, some people are insane. I kind of agree.
I gotta agree. Yeah, listen, sure, I mean honestly, some
people do like that that much charm their pizza. I
think you know, coming from New York, where pizza was born,
stop it, stop it.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
We already talked about this, We already won this fight.
But like, well, but I think you and I do
cook pizza very similarly, like like we like about the
same temperature, Like we kind of like it. I agree,
six fit between six and seven hundred. It is kind
of where you want to be.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
Yeah, for sure. And say it now, not from Connecticut
and either of you, but we've definitely been influenced by
the Connecticut pizza scene.

Speaker 1 (40:06):
Yeah. I mean, dude, it's the best pizza in the world.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
Come on, it's definitely very good.

Speaker 1 (40:12):
I have a quick pizza story, kinds tell it really quick,
real quick. My daughter had a volleyball tournament recently and
I was there and it was in New Haven, Okay,
and I saw them. They said they were gonna bring
pizza around noon, to have pizza for anybody who wanted
from the from the concession stand right. Oh, And most
of the time they get like I won't name the
gro grocery store pizzas. They get a big box of it.

(40:33):
It's massive, and that's they bring in they sell, and I,
jeff I was getting so mad. I was like, we
are in New Haven and if they bring in a
stupid grocery store pizza, we are in We are feet
away from where pizza is invented the way that we
know it, like we they better they better be Sally's.
They're better be modern. It better be something. They better

(40:54):
show up in here with some some damn little Caesars
or some grocery Jeffy, listen to me. I was getting
so hot it and it hadn't even happened yet. I
was getting so mad, and the other parents are like,
you're really fired up. I was like, listen to me,
if they show up with that pizza, I'm gonna lose
my mind. Like you're already losing your mind and they're
not even here yet. I was like, I know, I'm
gonna go find out what they have and they had
like it was like some other local pizza.

Speaker 2 (41:16):
It was fine.

Speaker 1 (41:16):
It wasn't what I'm thinking, but it was better than
what I thought they were going to ring. But anyway,
I was getting so fired up about it because when
you're near pizza that great.

Speaker 2 (41:25):
Yeah, that's what you give.

Speaker 1 (41:28):
If I called Sally's and told him I was there,
we get all kinds of pizza's Like what are we doing?

Speaker 2 (41:33):
If there's a Dominoes in New Haven? I would be shocked. Yeah,
that would be crazy, right, Like I just can't you know,
it's just like there's so many good pizza in that town.
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 (41:43):
Right, all right, So back to the bread part. And
I guess it's kind of relevant cause the bread, dough, pizza, pizza, pizza, bread, tortillas.
I mean, is that a flatbread? We're calling it a flatbread.

Speaker 2 (41:51):
It's basically a flatbread, I think. So Forrest chef Forest
Pasternak on last week, and he was talking all about
the yeah, so of you know, the flour, which is
the masa, you know, and how he uses a fresh masa,
and you know the cooking temperature, and I mean, it's
it's almost everything we've been talking about today. I think
the one thing about a tortilla is it's an unleavened bread,

(42:14):
like there's no real leavenar in there.

Speaker 1 (42:15):
For sure, for sure, for sure, yeah yeah, yeah, And
it's kind of all the same, like it's high heat,
quick cooking, super simple. Like this isn't a rocket science
when it comes to these things.

Speaker 2 (42:24):
Yeah, no, no, no, I think, In fact, I think
it's maybe steam levens a tortilla a little bit. That's
where you get the bubbles is from the steam.

Speaker 1 (42:31):
That's exactly what happens. Yeah, after it sits and covered up.
You know, when you have a tortilla and you basically
you mix the dough together, you roll it out, you
press it, you put into a hot pan, it blisters
on the outside. Then you put it into a plate
with a towel on it, or this tortilla warmer and
what happens is left over heat is what steams, and
that's what causes to cook on the inside.

Speaker 2 (42:49):
Basically it's awesome piece of cake.

Speaker 1 (42:51):
But yeah, I think, and and all these breads and
oh we're already down to this breaks almost over already,
Like there's always more than one used for bread, which
is what I love like one of my favorite things
to do with leftover bread. It's like grill it with
some olive oil, Jeffy, and then we make a delicious
tomato like salad out of it, which is awesome.

Speaker 2 (43:06):
Oh yeah, tomato salad is a great thing to do
with leftover bread. I mean, honestly, I just love to
make great crutons. Sure make I use the garlic driz
from Pizza Knight, you know whatever, Yeah knows. That's the
two to one garlic to oil or even even parts
garlic to oil and a blender, a little salt, and
I just put that all over the cruit. The chopped
up stale bread. That's a sprinkle a little bit of

(43:28):
chili flakes and some Italian seasoning. Bake it till it's crispy.

Speaker 1 (43:31):
Good stuff right there. You can't get wrong with it.
So many things to talk about with bread here, and
that's what we're focused on. We're celebrating the wonderful water
bread we get back friends from this next break, we're
gonna talk all about sourdough. Sour dough took over the
world a couple of years ago, and it's still around.
Everyone's making it, even at home. I got a feeling
Chef Jeffy and Chef Plumber making it.

Speaker 2 (43:48):
Stay right there.

Speaker 1 (43:49):
You're checking out Plumb Love Foods. The bread addition, friends,
we're talking sour dough. We get back right here on
wicc and Plum Love Foods. Stay right there.

Speaker 2 (44:09):
It starts with the dough. It's with the dough.

Speaker 4 (44:17):
They made a sour dough starting on a Friday night,
twelve pounds of flour. Now the sours right now. The
clock says it's time for the proof.

Speaker 2 (44:26):
Now what you're gonna do?

Speaker 4 (44:30):
They made a French loaf, a French bagad of itself,
boullet pullman loafing bread o chest.

Speaker 2 (44:37):
But when it comes to bread, ma'am, they already know.
It starts with the dough chaff in plumb.

Speaker 3 (44:47):
No, it starts with the dough.

Speaker 2 (44:49):
Dough, It starts with the dough chaff in plumb.

Speaker 3 (44:54):
No, it starts with the dough. The dog.

Speaker 4 (44:58):
Now regular white bread man, ain't ain't a thing total
mad to do it back in all burn springs.

Speaker 2 (45:05):
Now the timer sends it is time for the proof.
Now what you going do?

Speaker 4 (45:11):
They made a French loaf, a French backet of for
sil bullet boom a loaf.

Speaker 2 (45:17):
And brill shift. But when it comes to bread Man,
they already No. It starts with the dough.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
Oh yeah, the dough from our friends, the Flames, the
house band here at Plumb Love Foods right here. W
I see the voice like a chef, plump chef, Jeff
Plumb Love Foods, Jeffy. This might be my favorite song
they've done for us.

Speaker 2 (45:40):
Are you kidding me?

Speaker 1 (45:41):
This is incredible banger. This one is a banker, no
doubt about it.

Speaker 2 (45:46):
It's breo shoes.

Speaker 1 (45:48):
Listen. Man's we're gonna take all these songs and we're
gonna put it on a Spotify channel here very soon.
We're gonna have that done. To download the Spotify soundtrack
to the show that's happening soon later.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
It has to happen.

Speaker 1 (46:00):
I know how to do it now. That's a great
songs and banging right there. It sounds very uh, I
don't know, like country. It's it's very on par with
the world these days.

Speaker 2 (46:14):
Yeah, it starts with the dough.

Speaker 1 (46:17):
I feel like, yeah, right, no doubt about it. Uh,
listen if you miss any part of the show. Obviously,
we talk about it every time we come back from
a break and get it anywhere you get your podcast,
check out Plumb, Love Foods, anywhere you get your podcast, Spotify, Apple,
you name it, it's there. Just go find it.

Speaker 2 (46:33):
I'm telling you it's not hard to find.

Speaker 1 (46:34):
And of course you can follow me at Chef Underscore
Plumb on Instagram, and of course you can follow Jeffrey
at fork King Chef on Instagram as well. It's f
O r k K I n G fork King, like
he's the King of the Forks. I just like I
have to explain it because like it's a little hard
to figure out, like mine's the chef, Plump's my name,
yours is some crazy alliteration.

Speaker 2 (46:54):
Nursery rhyme.

Speaker 1 (46:56):
No, it's a good gimmick. It's a great gimmick until
you try to promote it.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
It's a good until you say it on all right.

Speaker 1 (47:03):
All right, until you try to say it, you're like, oh,
this is four kings. Oh geez, here we go, and
to figure it out.

Speaker 2 (47:07):
Yep, it's good. Mm hmmm.

Speaker 1 (47:11):
We're talking all about bread this episode, friends and having
a great conversation about what are you laughing at?

Speaker 2 (47:16):
Just are amazing?

Speaker 1 (47:18):
Well, I thought you keep talking. I was taking a
sip of my water there. I thought you would keep talking,
but nope, you let me left me hanging. I co
host like look out for me, I like out for you.
You know you cough, I talk. I'm sorry when when
I cough, you talk? You know smart, just saying that
thought works radio.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
We're good.

Speaker 1 (47:37):
We're talking all about breads in this episode. Friends, if
Jeffy and I can get through it and I kill
each other, it's gonna be fair. And I'm just kidding.
I would never kill Jeffrey. I love them too much.
But uh, we've covered some simple breads. We covered the
bread basics. Let's talk about what is the talk of
the town. Jeffy the bell of the ball.

Speaker 2 (47:58):
Who's her the bread? To be the bread? Oh we're
talking brio.

Speaker 1 (48:05):
Nope, Nope, nope, nope, We're talking sourdough. Sourdough became a thing.
Soura has been a thing in my life, my entire
life as a culinarian and as a chef. I remember
making sourdough in culinary school and learning the basics of it.
I thought it was stupid. I thought it was like
a lot of work for no reason I did. I'm
not even lying. I was like, this is the dumbest thing.
Why do we do this? This is stupid. This is

(48:27):
why I'm not a baker. I'm a chef. I'm not
a baker. Which, by the way, there's a difference in
the two. When you go to culinary school, you choose
between culinary arts or making a pastry. There's a difference.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
It's true.

Speaker 1 (48:36):
It's true. But anyway, but now, in my infinite wisdom
that I've learned over time, I was incorrect Bred. It's
very cool. Sourdough is very very cool. I've been making
a lot of sour dough these days, trying to teach
myself and learn and kind of re educate how it works.
And sourdough really really took off during the pandemic.

Speaker 2 (48:55):
Jeffie Well, I think when people were locked in their
homes with you know, surpluses of like dried goods, right,
making bread seem like the thing, you know, sure, and
then you couldn't get yeast. It's pretty easy to make
east out of the air.

Speaker 1 (49:12):
Well, just to recap that, let's talk about how to
make eastie of the air you want, I said at
once once you say it's not for everybody, because it's
called a sour starter. And it's not rocket science. I mean,
it really is not. It's one of the oldest ways
to make a leaven for your bread.

Speaker 2 (49:24):
Yeah. It's just equal parts water and flour, right.

Speaker 1 (49:27):
Yeah, I mean, and then what do you do with it?

Speaker 2 (49:29):
You let it sit. You let it sit out right.
Let it sit.

Speaker 1 (49:33):
For me here at my house, I have a you know,
a field and like outside and you know, rural farm area.
I open the top up and let it sit and
just let it collect natural yeast in the air for
about an hour and a half two hours, and then
cover it up and just guess what happens That east
starts eat the natural sugars that are in the wheat,
that are in the flower, and it creates its own

(49:53):
comes to life, creates its own like leavening situation. And
here's the cool thing about it, friends, is that you
can do this any kind of place that you live, right.

Speaker 2 (50:02):
You live in the city, you live in uh.

Speaker 1 (50:05):
You're in Bridgeport, you're in Hartford, you're in Danbury, you're
in New Milford, wherever you are. It doesn't matter. There's
natural yeasts in the air occurring everywhere. And what you're
now doing is taking the natural yeast from your area
and using it to make your sour starter, which will
affect the flavor of your bread, which is what you've
done to make it your own. I think, I think

(50:25):
it really feels like it's your own when you creck
your own starter like that.

Speaker 2 (50:28):
Jeffrey, I do too, I think, I think, and it
doing it that way, it is. It's once you get
a starter like that and you get it going, it
is yours, and then you're sharing a part of yours. Sure, yeah, yeah,
your neighborhood, your your love, you terror.

Speaker 1 (50:47):
It's a wine word. Look at you tear, which means
the land that you're around you.

Speaker 2 (50:51):
You would like that.

Speaker 1 (50:52):
I love that word.

Speaker 2 (50:53):
That was great.

Speaker 1 (50:54):
But here's the cool thing about it, though, is that
like it literally is made from the land around you.
And I think that that is when you're making a bread,
it's such a made with patience and love and made
with the natural ingredients. It's just it's fantastic. It's one
of those things that like when I was making sourdough
was in culinary school, I didn't get all that. Now
I get that, and I really really enjoyed that process.

(51:17):
So I've been making sourdough baguette loafs, which is pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (51:22):
Your own your own baguettes.

Speaker 1 (51:24):
Yeah, but sourdough bagats right. So sourdough again, much like
the rest of the breads we talked about, very very simple.
It's it's I mean, guys, we're talking flour, salt water,
and sour starter, which is what we're making in that jar.

Speaker 2 (51:39):
So with the bag get you have to like fold
a towel and like mold it.

Speaker 1 (51:45):
I'm so glad you asked Jeffey. I I have answers.

Speaker 2 (51:48):
Yeah, Like, I mean, I've done them, but I had
those cool uh. I can't remember what they call them,
but they're like these bread mold kind of things for them.

Speaker 1 (51:55):
No, I ain't got none of that community, you know,
I'm not. But you know, my guy wasn't buy things
like that.

Speaker 2 (52:00):
Come on, no, I know, but I think I have
a piece of canvas something.

Speaker 1 (52:03):
I have canvas I use. Yeah, I have a piece
of canvas I use. So let's talk about let's talk
about sour dough, and just before we jump into how
I particularly do it, let's talk about what it is.
So basically, you know, I tend to make my sour
dough with wheat flour, which some people don't one hundred
percent agree with, or at least some sort of blend
of wheat flour. I know your wife makes sour dough.
Does she blend it a little bit or she used

(52:23):
ap flour or bread flowers?

Speaker 2 (52:25):
She does a mix of bread flour and whole wheat flower.

Speaker 1 (52:28):
Okay, I like using a little bit of wholehet flour
and bread flour myself. But my starter these days, I've
been feeding a little bit of dry dark rye flower,
which it really likes to dye, dry dark rye flower.
And when I said, we say feed and for you
to miss the first part of the show. If you
miss it, you can obviously download it from any place
with your podcast. When you make your sour starter, you've

(52:49):
opened it up, You've put some flour, some water in.
You've opened it up to the air. Let it collect it,
let it kind of hang out and at room temp
and start to bubble and kind of just make a
whole fun thing happening basically at fermentsoventially right, you have
to feed it because eventually it runs out of sugar.
So feeding it means you add more flour and more water.
But we also have talked about something called discard. So
it'll if you keep feeding, it's gonna overflow, so you

(53:11):
have to you have to throw some of it out right,
or some people actually will make discard bagels or discard
low for discard rolls. It will take the discard, which
is the two or three scoops they take out of
their sour and would throw away instead use that to
make another bread. But once you scoop some out, I
then add a little bit of my dark rye flour
to it, a little bit of warm water.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
Mix it.

Speaker 1 (53:30):
It takes three and a half seconds to do it.
To feed your sour, it's a piece of cake. If
you're gonna go away on a trip, put your sour
in the refrigerator and it's fine. It'll hold there. It's
just the start of a hold there. It's fine, we
need it again, pull it out. But when I get home,
I usually pull it out and feed it because I
think it's fun to do so for me, I like
using a little bit of wheat flour and ap flour.

(53:51):
And you said your wife is the same thing. Yes,
And when she does hers, does she just use the starter?
Does she add to it too, or how does she
do hers or how have you done it?

Speaker 2 (54:04):
I've done just with starter when I do sour dough,
mostly when I do yeast os. We haven't talked about this,
but I like to do what's called the poolash.

Speaker 1 (54:14):
Oh yeah, we're gonna jumping out next break.

Speaker 2 (54:16):
Yeah, yeah, but we can talk about the next break.

Speaker 1 (54:17):
But I like to use.

Speaker 2 (54:20):
Also, I don't really like to use really whole wheat
flour anymore. I've been getting into using like ancient grain flowers,
like ice flour and black ammera flower. I find black
ammera flower. I don't know if it has more sugar
in it or what, but it reacts really well. Okay
with the yeast in the beginning.

Speaker 1 (54:37):
I haven't done that yet. I should try that.

Speaker 2 (54:38):
Yeah. And then I've been using icorn flour, which I
U it's a it's got high high protein so it
makes a nice gluten but it's got less starch and
apparently it's better for people who have gluten intolerance and
stuff like that. So I've been using that that with.

Speaker 1 (54:55):
You should try to feed. Tell your wife to feed
the sour, to feed the stock, call it sour, but
feed the starter some dark rye flower.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
It really likes it. Yeah, I mean, that's a cool
flavor to it, I bet.

Speaker 1 (55:05):
Interestingly enough, complete sidebar here, there's a few bakeries in
town in our state, for instance, a Wave Hill Bakery
who they grind all of their own flowers, so they
get all their grains whole and they grind their own
flowers this big stone grinding wheel they have, which is
pretty cool. Wave Hill's fantastic. You should try their breads.

Speaker 2 (55:23):
We have it.

Speaker 1 (55:24):
We should have on the show, Norwalk, we should have
them on the show. His bread is unfreaking believable. But
interestingly enough, he's one of the other bakeries I've heard
of several who are grinding their own flowers who people
who have gluten aaleries don't react people who have gluten
allergies excuse me, don't react to well.

Speaker 2 (55:44):
I mean this is a much deeper conversation, but oh yeah.
A lot of the flowers that we get in America
are bated.

Speaker 1 (55:52):
Bromine, which is basically chlorine exactly.

Speaker 2 (55:55):
They've been treated with chemicals, and those chemicals I think
it's interesting with the Jeff there's residuals to those chemicals,
and although it does the bread will stay much softer
after it's been bromated. It's true, it's a it's treated
in a way that after the bread's been cooked, they'll
stay softer for longer. But you're sacrificing well, right, people

(56:20):
can have reactions to it because they can cause different things.
But I think it's funny that people who grind their
own grains tend to not have people react who have
gluten alogies react to it, which is interesting.

Speaker 1 (56:29):
Because they're yeah processed or maybe or maybe we're finding
the wrong thing that they're having reaction to.

Speaker 2 (56:35):
That's my big that's exactly right. It's being really you.

Speaker 1 (56:39):
Should say again, I tell my wife that you should
just tell me.

Speaker 2 (56:42):
That's what happens when people go to Europe. They eat
pasta and bread and feel great. Ye, everyone has a
great time. Everyone's like, oh my gosh, I haven't eaten
bread in years. It's so amazing. They come and they
get sick as a dog, and they get sick as
a dog because our food is overprocessed. And it's not
overprocessed in kitchens, it's overprocessing factories after it's been picked
and turned into flowers. It's systematically almost not good for you.

Speaker 1 (57:06):
Jeffy's getting fired up right now. You guys can't see
his face, but I can see the seriousness in his face.

Speaker 2 (57:10):
No, but I love it. You're right, I love it.
You're right. But because I love bread, and I love pizza,
and I love pasta and I love dough. It starts
with the dough, baby, dude, you're so right, And it
starts with flour. And if you can't get really good flower,
you're messed up. People are having a hard time, and
that's just a bummer, you know, it is it is.

Speaker 1 (57:30):
And but you figure, like when I was in France,
like I was watching these French bakers who they would
grind their own grains and the same thing. There's no
gluten allergies or things like that. It's just a whole
different world. And you know, at for instance, Wave Hill,
who I'm shouting out here very very much, shouting out,
they are fantastic. Their breads are amazing. I buy the
They're now sold in certain stores across the state, grocery stores.

(57:52):
Great breads. You know they're doing a great job. But
guess what, it's a French bakery.

Speaker 2 (57:58):
I love that.

Speaker 1 (57:59):
And they grind their own So when you see a bakery,
if they're grinding their own grains. Give it a try.
If you think you have a gluten analogy. I'm not
saying you think if you, if you if the doctor
told you have a gluten analogy, try somebody who's grinding
their own grains, because you might be really really surprised that.
Guess what, you might not have reaction to it because
they are literally getting whole grain and grinding it. Particularly
if they get it locally even better because no one's

(58:20):
touched it.

Speaker 2 (58:20):
Then you know it's true. And you can look for
non brom maated flowers and stuff like that, like I know,
King Arthur, are they doing that now? Ap I believe
is one of the only noun broad maated flowers that's
interesting market and uh, other than that, you got to
look for there's like farmer ground. There's like a there's
a handful of flowers out there that are ground straight

(58:41):
from grains.

Speaker 1 (58:41):
Wow, we went a whole different route here. Didn't think
we're going I mean, I'm talking sour doughs this, but
it's the truth.

Speaker 2 (58:46):
Like, but it's what starts with the flower into the
sour dough. Especially for people with allergies, it's just a
bummer as a chef. I know you feel this when
when someone's like I can't touch that, yeah, and you're like,
oh man, but it's so good, like you're missing out, brother,
and it's like.

Speaker 1 (59:01):
And you know, that's our chef brain. We want to
make people happy exactly. So it sounds silly. We can
be jerks, but somehow we still want to make people happy.

Speaker 2 (59:09):
Oh yeah, I mean it's a problem. It's like if
I had a pizzeria, the pizza would be so expensive
because I would be looking for like the greatest. That's
not weird anymore, though.

Speaker 1 (59:16):
You probably could sell a pizza for thirty bucks and
people will still buy it.

Speaker 2 (59:19):
They might.

Speaker 1 (59:20):
I mean, let's talk about sourdough though, and so for instance,
sourdough is it's not rocket science. It's the same ingredience
as other things. Like you have your yeast and then
this in this situation, the yeast itself is the starter
that we made with that flower water. Let it collect
the east naturally, work on it for a little. It
takes about seven days to make it. But once you
make it, you can keep it alive for a very

(59:41):
long time, and then you have it forever, and then
you'll give some to people and you'll share it, and
it's a really family type situation. Like I think it's
cool when you make a starter and you have this family,
like like your family start you've had forever, and you know,
I hope to one day give some to my daughters
when they're older and want to make bread and like,
here's some starter from the house that you grew up in.
That's cool to me.

Speaker 2 (01:00:01):
So that's the same as yeast o. It is a
difference between sourdough and yasto. It's just just the wild yeaster.
Is there something else?

Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
It's wild yeast, but you need more of it, right
because it's it's the count that you might get in
that little seven gram packet of yeast. It's gonna be
a higher yeast count that's going to be than compared
to your regular sourdough starter that you have. So you're
gonna use more sourdough Starter than you would have YaST.
For instance, like in my bagette recipe, you know, I'm
using you know, fifty grams of my starter as opposed

(01:00:29):
to seven gram packet of yeast. Is that fought? You
follow me?

Speaker 2 (01:00:32):
Yep? Yep?

Speaker 1 (01:00:33):
So my bag ats that I've been working on that
are really good and I'm gonna make again soon. I'll
bring you some cause I think you're gonna be like, oh,
that's actually really interesting and really delicious.

Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:00:40):
I fell in love with bagettes in France, and then
we love sourdough, so I'm like, let me make some
sour dough baguettes. It's not rocket people do that. It's
not a weird thing to do.

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
No, that sounds awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:00:48):
So I use a mixture of a wheat flour basically
in bread flour. It's five hundred grams. I usually do
about one quarter wheat flour to three quarters of bread flour.
I do a nine of salt, which I actually pour
the salt into my flour mixture and whisk it together
to kind of put some air in it and break
down in the big pieces. I then am going to

(01:01:10):
take my starter fifty grams of starter and mix it
with water. Sometimes I played with the idea of using
about four grams of dry yeast in there as well,
so I have yeast and my starter to kind of
but you don't have to do that. I've decided I
don't like to do that. I just use my starter
a little bit, yeah, because I want more bubbles than it.
I'm trying. I'm really working on the bubble structure inside
of it, and that bubble when I say that, all
those air pockets that kind of give it that leavening

(01:01:32):
in there. But my starter is fifty grams of starter,
and and I use three hundred and thirty grams of
warm water. Right, And you can get crazy with the
water temperature and all that sort of things, but like
the base temperatures, I want sixty five degrees celsius of
my dum right, which is like what celsius a fair
and highest sixty five degrees where we're talking about hair
about ninety five hundred and five something.

Speaker 2 (01:01:53):
Like that or something.

Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
Yeah, But anyway, I mix it together and the kind
of the same process here my yeast a little bit
in my water. I mix in my my my flowers
to it. But then what I like to do I've
learned is I actually take in my We talked about
auto least before, so I do a light mixture at first,
let it sit like I let it. I literally would
put my dough hook into my my mixer, mix it

(01:02:17):
for four or five spins, and then stop and let
it sit for twenty minutes yep. Then mix it again,
put it into a bowl after that, and put it
in my fridge out every night and let it hang out.
Like I don't mind it proofing in the cold. Like
then I feel like there's less room for air if
it proofs in the cold. Jeffy, Well, it's a much
slower proof, but there's still it's it still works. You

(01:02:41):
can still prove it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:41):
It does work. But it's like it's a fickle thing.
You know, you still have to still it still has
to come out of the fridge for some time, no
doubt about it. Yeah, it can't go fridge of it.
I mean it can, but it's not going to cook. Well,
you're not going to get structure like we were talking,
the bubble going to be there. It's definitely got to come.

Speaker 1 (01:02:57):
So I usually pull it out of the pull it
out of the fridge on it sit for about two
and a half to three hours. Yeah right, it's already
almost doubled in size in the fridge, but then it
gets a little bit stronger sitting outside com of the temperature.
The key thing I've learned, two key things I've learned here.
When I would do my sour dough. I'm gonna bake
it into a cast iron pan pot something right with
a lid. And when I do that, I get I

(01:03:18):
turn my oven to five hundred degrees and I put
my dish into the oven, and I bring that thing
up and it sits never for an hour and gets
super hot.

Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:03:27):
I then take my doze out and I'll put it
into the dish. Right, this is the or if I'm
doing the bad guts, I'll let the bad guts like
not being the dish, not the oven it to five
hundred degrees and bake them on a stone.

Speaker 2 (01:03:39):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:03:40):
But the key thing I've learned here, especially from when
I've spent my time in France talking to French bakers,
was I missed them with water before I put them
in little sprits of water. And then I put a
little pan of foil pan that you might get. Let
it's like to go foods in or whatever. I put
some warm water in it, put in the bottom of
the pan, just to keep moisture in the oven. Right,
And literally I let it ride five hundred degrees in

(01:04:01):
that oven for about fifteen minutes. I check it at
seven usually turn it if I have to and let
it ride. Let me tell you, man, it comes out
really really delicious. It's nice and crusty on top, crunchy
warm on the center. Bubbles are great in there, and
it has this crazy, I don't know, almost like earthy
flavor from obviously from the starter and from the wheat

(01:04:25):
for flour.

Speaker 2 (01:04:26):
Sounds amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:04:28):
I mean, it's yummy. And usually my recipe, the recipe
I escape gave gives you three loabes, so and you
can actually bake the whole thing as one loaf you
want to, but three loaves of you know about twelve
inches twelve sixteen inches of a you know of a loaf,
which is great.

Speaker 2 (01:04:42):
So when you auto lease them to get into that shape,
is it is it hard to get them into the
bag at shape? Or do you do you have to
give them a roll? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:04:51):
No, it's interesting. We're getting short on time. But I'll
tell you I auto lease, I proof it in the frigerator,
I pull it out of the frigerator. I then bring
it on the board. I cut it into three pieces,
and I have a canvas thing I've put on a
sheet hand that I put in the three folds, and
I kind of stretch a little bit and put into
each fold and let it prove for an hour in
that in that uh that that that position or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:05:10):
Yeah yeah, yeah, oh that's great.

Speaker 1 (01:05:12):
And then hit it with my razor because you got
to split the skin on the outside of it so
it doesn't you know, and then it, dude, it breaks,
it bakes. I gotta bring you some. I think it'll
be really impressed.

Speaker 2 (01:05:20):
I can't wait. I can't wait. You know I will be.

Speaker 1 (01:05:22):
And we are getting down right here. We're getting down
right here. I'll tell you, man, it's it's it's this.
This show is going by so fast right now. It's
the third breaks over a ry Jeffy. Can you believe it?
I know, I know, I'm telling you listen, talk another
hour about this, honestly, we sure can.

Speaker 2 (01:05:36):
But we have a few more minutes for our next break.

Speaker 1 (01:05:37):
We'll jump into a little bit Jeff's and toss about.

Speaker 2 (01:05:40):
Poolush poolish, polish poolish.

Speaker 1 (01:05:42):
It's gonna break it down for us. And plus talking
more bread right here on Plumb of Foods on wy
c C. The voice that connect a chef plumber, Chef Jeff,
We appreciate you, guys. We hope you're having a great weekend.
Let's take some bread together. We'll see in a second.
Stay right there, fun Love foods right here on a Saturday,

(01:06:25):
WICC Chef, plump Chef Jeff hanging out with you and
talking all about breads, my friends, Jeffy, there's put a
lot of knowledge on this program today had in there.

Speaker 2 (01:06:35):
It's been amazing. I love talking about I.

Speaker 1 (01:06:38):
Didn't know you're such a bread guy.

Speaker 2 (01:06:39):
Oh yeah, I was a baker. It was one of
my first culinary Jeff.

Speaker 1 (01:06:42):
You've mentioned that seventeen times since we started the show.

Speaker 2 (01:06:46):
Have I told you I was a baker?

Speaker 1 (01:06:47):
Well, here's the thing. You have to say it seventeen
times because maybe people are just tuning in now and
didn't hear their earlier parts.

Speaker 2 (01:06:51):
Yeah, well, professional broadcaster, I was toorrid about one of
the best.

Speaker 1 (01:06:54):
That's right. And if you did miss some of this stuff, Jeffy,
you can get it anywhere right, anywhere you want to
get it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:59):
It was a costing it because now there's AI. You
just talked to your favorite browser AI and just say
plumb love foods and guess what boom we show up.
Or you have an app that plays your favorite podcast
because you listen to some sort of murder mystery junk.
We want to listen to some food talk radio. You
plumb love foods live.

Speaker 1 (01:07:17):
That's right, and you can get some great and for instance,
this show here, we've given about nineteen recipes out here.
I'm telling you it's good stuff. You're gonna want to
download it so before.

Speaker 2 (01:07:24):
But yes, this is a is a good point. We
give out a lot of recipes, we talk a lot, and.

Speaker 1 (01:07:29):
We're talking all about bread on this episode and our
last break we spent some time talking about sowurdough. It
gave you one of my favorite sour dough recipes. But
and our band The Flames played the song. But Jeffy,
here's a great question for you man, and you as
a professional chef. And this is me making conversation because
I can answer the question too former baker, because you
used to be a baker apparently.

Speaker 2 (01:07:49):
Yeah, yeah, that's the thing I did. Pastries and bread.

Speaker 1 (01:07:52):
Is there a big difference than two, Well.

Speaker 2 (01:07:56):
Not really, I mean they start as bread and then
they get enriched in the pastry. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:08:00):
Can you elaborate on that little bit of chef well
for the layman terms for people to understand more so, enrich.

Speaker 2 (01:08:08):
Doughs are gonna have butter, eggs, and sugar.

Speaker 1 (01:08:12):
Okay, So now we're adding a whole different segment to it, right, Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:08:15):
We're adding So you have maybe your yeast dough and
you're letting it sit to that certain point, and then
you're folding in tiny bits of cold butter, maybe a
few eggs, extra sugar or other sweeteners, and making more
of like a sweet, delicious dough like Danish dough is
one of my favorites. Okay, pretty much starts as the

(01:08:38):
same way. Brioche starts and.

Speaker 1 (01:08:40):
Boche are very buttery type of bread, right, and other
breads we talked about in case you guys miss it,
just to recap a little bit, some of the other
breads we talked about are very very simple, you know, flour, salt,
yeast and water is kind of.

Speaker 2 (01:08:50):
What it is.

Speaker 1 (01:08:51):
But getting into the world of enriched breads like a brioche,
you know, we're talking more fat content. We're talking you know, eggs, sugar,
you know, a little bit different butter, you know those
sort of things.

Speaker 2 (01:09:03):
Yeah, eggs, sugar, butter, those are the three the holy
trinity of enriched breads.

Speaker 1 (01:09:07):
If you will, Oh, okay, I appreciate that too, So
talking about can you give me an enriched bread, like
an example, we talked about Briosche. What else would be
an example?

Speaker 2 (01:09:14):
You said Danish, Danish is a delicious and rich bread.
Brioche Halla holla. I knew that was coming Jewish fans
out there who celebrate the Shabbat every week, and Halla
is a enriched bread, right, it's an enriched bread. It's
much like brioche. Usually not usually it's butter. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:09:33):
Is there a difference in Halla in brioche though, let's
talk about that. Can we talk about that?

Speaker 2 (01:09:37):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:09:38):
Yeah, I feel like they're kind of the same bread.
The very well Halla is traditionally a braided bread. Okay,
well we're talking about how it looks. I mean, I
feel like how it looks and how it's made are
two different things. Oh, you got very high pitched on me,
very high.

Speaker 2 (01:09:52):
Pitched on me because you know, well that's how it's shaped,
you know, And then you have Halla. So I think
it goes like brioche, right, and then you take brioche
and you turn it into hollow. This is gonna be
like a hot dog sandwich conversation for you. But this
is like you're gonna go, We'll just keep moving. So
it's a hot dog sandwich situation. But it's the holla

(01:10:13):
right llas everything it's a hot dog And then you're
gonna be like bobka it now, No, it's not what
it sounds like only when you're arguing with me. So
it's you got the brioche, then you braid it now
all of a sudden, what you got?

Speaker 1 (01:10:27):
Well, what's in the boshe? Are you talking about that
for a second?

Speaker 2 (01:10:30):
Oh? Yeah, brioche bread is super super super easy.

Speaker 1 (01:10:33):
You want to I mean, flour, salt like it's a
yeast loving bread. Is it a chemical?

Speaker 2 (01:10:38):
It's milk, it's sugar.

Speaker 1 (01:10:40):
The milk is kind of different. Use milk ins out
of water, right all yep?

Speaker 2 (01:10:44):
All purpose flour, salt and cold butter. Okay, And basically
it's the lukewarm milk. You're gonna warm up your milk
a little bit in a pan. I usually just put
it in over a little bit of heat to take
the chill off it till it just just feels warm,
like by the who was Luke?

Speaker 1 (01:11:00):
And how warm was actually a Luke? Can we find
Luke and see what his temperature is?

Speaker 2 (01:11:04):
Well? Lukewarm. I mean, WHOA, I don't want to take
ahead that I threw a dad joke out there for
no reasons and it really hit me with a mental
VID image that freaked me out. So anyway, we're gonna
mix the yeast, the lukewarm milk or the baby bottle
warm milk now because I can't luke ever again, the sugar,

(01:11:27):
and you're gonna let that stand together till it foams
a little bit. Then you're gonna add your flour, your salt,
and your eggs. And then after you have your dough together,
you're gonna add little pieces of butter and a biscuit situation, right,
and you're gonna knead it into the dough for about
fifteen minutes until it gets becomes from sticky to like this,

(01:11:50):
you know, more like homogenized dough. And then you're gonna
take that and then let it rest and double you
can either refrigerate it, you know, over an or least
on the counter.

Speaker 1 (01:12:01):
And the same dough is what you would make for
a hola bread as well.

Speaker 2 (01:12:05):
Very similar, very similar. A lot of times you might
not use butter, you might use oil instead. O. Yeah,
because depending on what you're serving. I know, butter is
not parv, which is like you know, right right right,
right right, so considered dairy you know or whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:12:22):
I just think of like my recipe would say fat,
you know, and that you could put any kind of
fat you choose, but butters with your choice.

Speaker 2 (01:12:28):
But I get that, yeah, yeah, And the egg is
in there, and then you would then cut this into
three pieces and then braid those three pieces, right, and
to make a loaf for of holla. And then if
you wanted to take this a step further, and you ever,
I don't know if you've heard of bobka.

Speaker 1 (01:12:47):
Yeah, I think of a more ressert type situation, like
a resert.

Speaker 2 (01:12:50):
Type of situation. But you can take this exact dough
here honey and walnuts, right yeah, honey and walnuts are
tons of chocolate, and you tell them and you chop
it up and and uh, you roll it into the
center the the you're braided pieces and they cut those
into three each and then braid those three and then

(01:13:11):
braid those three into those and then put them together.
So it's all these like crazy notice.

Speaker 1 (01:13:15):
Yeah, yeah, it's like it's the filling kind of in there,
which is kind of nice. And then don't you brush
the top with butter or some sort of fat on
top of it, tons of tons of uh and uh
then or the eggwash. I believe it's you just kind
of like bake it.

Speaker 2 (01:13:28):
It's sort of like laminated the dough with you're filling,
which is usually like some sort of butter oil mix
with nuts and rigar or with manutel and stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:13:38):
Yeah, I'm gonna throw out there for people too, like,
we're not obviously on this. You know, this is a
two hour show. We can't cover every brown the planet.
We're trying to cover some of the basics, some of
the more popular things here. I mean, I'm waiting to
get messages back and being.

Speaker 2 (01:13:48):
Like, oh, that's not how I make.

Speaker 1 (01:13:49):
My blah blah blah, like how do you make chrebata?

Speaker 2 (01:13:52):
Like it's just.

Speaker 1 (01:13:55):
It's just want to say, we can't cover all of it.

Speaker 2 (01:13:58):
A lot of this though, too, remember is in the shaping. Yeah,
for sure, you know you're gonna do all the steps
that we talked about in the beginning of like how
to make a sour dough and how to make a
bread and a simple bread. These are the basics of it.
And then you get deeper and deeper into it. Once
you perfect making the dough, like it's all about the dough,
thank you the flames. We know, you can then shape

(01:14:22):
it into almost anything you want. So it's like you
take the brioche, you can cut those into small circles
and proof them in circles and bake them and now
you have buns, right, Yeah, delicious hamburger buns. Brush them
with some egg wash. Oh, they're shining.

Speaker 1 (01:14:38):
It's beautiful and taste delicious. And I actually like the
fat content in the bread like that. I think it
adds a whole different dimension of flavor to it. Granted,
so like I'm not talking health food here, but I
mean bread's not meant to be a health food, but
it's also not meant to be bad food either. I
think bread is an important part of our diet.

Speaker 2 (01:14:54):
Yeah. And this same brioche dough is what you would
use to make a danish, you know, right to a bombka.

Speaker 1 (01:15:01):
Yeah. And I even think that you can take a
simple pizza dough and make a delicious cinnamon roll out
of it for the morning. Like it's not like it's
these doughs. There's no right or wrong with it, Like
we're talking about different dos, different things you can do
with it. But like a pizza, dough is such a
versatile dough to do things with, you know, And it's
once you've met, like I said, we've started the show,
I said, learn how to make one, and you can

(01:15:23):
learn how to make more things out of that one.
You'd be amazed you can do with it, you.

Speaker 2 (01:15:27):
Know, exactly right.

Speaker 1 (01:15:27):
If you can make a pizza, do you make a picasha?
If you make a pizza, do you can make you
can make a chibata? Like it's like Jeff said, it's
all about the.

Speaker 2 (01:15:34):
Shape, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:15:35):
And then once you can make those breads, you can
then enrich those breads with a little flour, butter and
egg and change the game plan a little bit. It's
there's no right or wrong with it. And bread is
such a fun thing to make. And again, I would
honestly say, Jeff, as a chef for thirty plus years now,
one of the most rewarding things there is to make.

Speaker 2 (01:15:52):
Bread.

Speaker 1 (01:15:53):
Yeah, you're just nodded at me, run the radio.

Speaker 2 (01:15:55):
Yeah, bread is absolutely one of the most rewarding things because,
like I said before, it's a lot and you kind
of nurture it in the fruition, and the fruition is
is I mean, what is better than the smell of
fresh baked bread with a crunching crack of a nice
sour dough or the cushion of a brioche. I mean,

(01:16:16):
it's just like these things when they're made fresh, are
completely different than when you buy them in the store.
And and the love that you get to put into
each one, like a little kiss gently kissed from Jeff
each one.

Speaker 1 (01:16:28):
Say that it gets weird. It just gets weird. It
does get weird.

Speaker 2 (01:16:31):
But can we can we just backtrack a little bit
because we talked about a couple of things that I
wanted to clarify for everybody. And back in the beginning,
we talked about something called the Window Paine test. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
we talked that's right, you know, and uh, this is
how you know that you've your gluten is formed. You know.
This is a method of how you check your dough

(01:16:51):
and you check for the elasticity to be right. So
when it's been mixing in the mixer for a minute,
and this is for yeast O's obviously we talked about
does are not done this way? But when you're you're
forming your gluten. You you take the piece of the
dough and you stretch it out as far as you can,
and you kind of hold it up to the window,
and if the light goes through it and it doesn't tear,

(01:17:15):
it's elastically enough and it's ready to perfect airy and
nice and it's going to be perfect to use. That's
the window pain test, which is also like a trouble
shooting kind of method to make sure your dough is
ready to go, like you know, if you're not used
to the look of it or the sound of it,
because there's also the sound of it when the gluten's
being formed.

Speaker 1 (01:17:33):
But that window pain test is a great way for
maybe someone who's knew it making bread to test it
to see if they're making it the proper way, if
it's ready to go for the next step.

Speaker 2 (01:17:40):
Yeah, absolutely absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:17:42):
I think one of the things we've talked about a
lot of different doves here, a lot different things to make.
But I want to point out, like I'm gonna read
you something here in a second which is interesting, and
it's a recipe for basic white bread to make like
wonderbread at your house, right because listen, that's like the
most simple bread. There is is like a white bread.
You know, we all had white bread growing up, Like

(01:18:02):
this is. It's so simple and believe we're not friends,
We've already told you how to make it. It's so
easy and like it's one of those things that you
can make. You don't need a bread machine or anything fancy.
You can make it super easily and honestly, it's so simple.

Speaker 2 (01:18:16):
You're ready.

Speaker 1 (01:18:16):
We've already talked about this. Warm water between one hundred
and five one hundred fifty degrees. That's the one hundred
and fifteen degrees. Sorry, I was, I was so excited.
I didn't get the.

Speaker 2 (01:18:26):
Renunciation out properly.

Speaker 1 (01:18:28):
To activate the yeast, you want active dry yeast, very
very simple, instant or rapid rise, which is what you
want right there. A little bit of sugar, right you
can use honey as well, and that's to feed the
bread or feed the yeast and tenderize the bread. Very
simple salt to enhance the flavor. A little bit of
oil and flour. Bread flour or ap flour can both

(01:18:50):
be used with no changes. It's very very simple, like
you can use either one of those. The bread flour
will give you a little bit more gluten, right, But
that's all you need to make us very very very
simple bread.

Speaker 2 (01:19:00):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:19:02):
It's all about the texture of the dough, right, And
it should pull away from the sides of the bowl
once you mix it all together, and it should be
slightly sticky to the touch, in touch with the clean finger,
which is why a lot of break bakers will always
take get your hands wet before you use the dough.
One of the key things here is they say we
talked about before in the first break about fresh yeast
and dry yeasty. You should use fresh yeast here. You
don't have to, but fresh yeast kind of makes a

(01:19:24):
big difference. So most grocery stores sell that it's gonna
be generally, which I found in the dairy section, Jeffy.
Which how weird is that?

Speaker 2 (01:19:31):
Yeah, No, it is in the dairy section if they
have it at all, for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:19:35):
Right, I think most stores do at this point too,
So you know, yeah, it depends, but yeah, I mean, you.

Speaker 2 (01:19:40):
Don't need a bread maker or anything of that crazy stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:19:43):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:19:43):
It's basically we talked about the four You basically proof
the YaST. You're gonna add the yeast to the water
and a little bit of sugar and let it get
towards like an ic and bubbly and getting happy. Then
you're gonna you know, express your ingrease together and then
you know, very simply proof it in the bowl and
then make it and you can put it in like
you know, a loaf pan, which is how you get
that beautiful shape of a white bread. But yeah, again,

(01:20:06):
we've talked about lots of breads here in the show
today and that is the same that that's your basic
wonder bread recipe.

Speaker 2 (01:20:12):
It's so easy. Oh and you're gonna add that oil.

Speaker 1 (01:20:15):
You add the oil, the same thing to the to
the to the bloom as we're talking about with the
yeasts and all that.

Speaker 2 (01:20:19):
Oh yeah, and listen, I have no shame in the game.
If you're going to use a bread maker, go for
it fresh. Oh yeah, fresh brake bread.

Speaker 1 (01:20:26):
No is nothing wrong with that. But you don't. But
my point is that you don't have to have that.
This is expensive piece of machinery that you don't need.
You have an oven. Just use your oven. Yeah, absolutely,
but it's simple. And like again we're going back to
my point being here, Jeffy, is that, like you know,
the recipe is generally the same and simple, right, with

(01:20:47):
minor change, yeah, technique and minor changes here and there
to make whatever kind of bread you want to make.

Speaker 2 (01:20:52):
Yeah, well it's it's like they say, you know, when
you follow just a recipe, you only learn that one recipe,
but when you understand like the method and the method
behind what's going on with the recipe and the ratios,
because that's another very important thing, is like the ratios
between water, flour, yeast, and sugar. These are the things

(01:21:13):
that all have to kind of work in harmony for
your bread baby to be born. Right.

Speaker 1 (01:21:18):
And we talked about the hydration factor here and hydration
being an important factor when making different types of bread
and things of that nature. And you know, for me, yeah,
I like that for it's it's it's it's one of
those things where's there's no right or wrong. It's what light,
What do you like? What's your situation here? And you know,
I think for a bread like this, you know, when
using bread flour or for instance, you know, I want

(01:21:40):
to make my hydration usually around fifty percent something like
that at least with bread flour, if not maybe even
a little bit more. But for making a regular white bread,
I mean, you're looking at fifty percent, you know, forty
five percent hydration. That's what you want here, because that
oil is going to add a little bit more hydration
to it too, in a different way, not like like
liquid hydration, but fat hydration.

Speaker 2 (01:22:00):
Yeah, it's definitely fat will cut down on some of
the hydration you need to use when you want.

Speaker 1 (01:22:06):
If you get into the world of making bread, it's
really hard to come out of it. It becomes such
a thing that you keep doing and doing it over
and over and over again. You want to keep getting
it and perfecting it and getting better at it. My wife,
who I love dearly, is is very much hard on
me when it comes to making bread because she's such
a bread fan, and we spent time in France together
and she is just like, it's good, it's not. She

(01:22:27):
she'll say, oh, that's that one's better than the last one.
And I was like, I thought you liked the last one.
She says, oh, I liked it, but this one's a
little bit better. And she's like, but I'm not craving it,
like I don't want another bite of it, And I'm like, oh, thanks,
But she's she's she's hard on me.

Speaker 2 (01:22:42):
About it.

Speaker 1 (01:22:43):
But that's what makes me get better, you know. That's
the ways you want to keep paying it truly is it?
Truly isn't? And your household, your wife makes the bread
more than you do.

Speaker 2 (01:22:50):
Right, absolutely she does, and she takes a lot of
pride in it, and she's really great at it. And
her girlfriend actually turned around to it, like I said,
from now you sent her the starter and she learned
all about it there. And you know, plum, I think
one thing we need to talk about because it's a
marriage between yeast making and sour dough. As I mentioned

(01:23:12):
it before, and that's the poolish.

Speaker 1 (01:23:14):
Oh yeah, yeah, we did you know what and this
whole segment and we never got into it. So yeah,
jump into the poolish all right.

Speaker 2 (01:23:20):
So the poolish spelled pooh liish.

Speaker 1 (01:23:23):
P o o l I s h my band on
my band in high school.

Speaker 2 (01:23:27):
By the way, Poolish I love. It is a type
of preferment or starter that's made with equal parts flour
and water and then mix with a small amount of yeast,
which is left to ferment for like a day. Like
usually if you start to dry, yeah, like you're like
you're dry active yeast or you can use fresh yeast
as well. Okay, but you're basically just like you're feeding

(01:23:49):
the water and flour some like a little bit of
yeast and letting that yeast eat the water and flour
and become kind of like its own ferment. It's like
a fast, south and interesting sour dough flavor. So if
you let it go for like a little bit longer,
like I've seen them go for twenty four hours, it
I challenge you to tell them it doesn't taste like

(01:24:10):
sour dough.

Speaker 1 (01:24:11):
I kind of want to try that. What if I
added some of that dry yeast to my starter? What
do you think that would do?

Speaker 2 (01:24:18):
It would probably just bump up the yeast amount yeast content.

Speaker 1 (01:24:22):
I'm not gonna do that because I think the starter
like like it's the local yeast whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:24:26):
But like, yeah, that's interesting, Yeah, no, it's it's a
You could also do things like add like you know,
wild honey and other things that will add natural.

Speaker 1 (01:24:36):
Yeasts well, because why because the yeast eat the honey
creates carbon dioxide and that's what costes elevening, which makes
a lot of sense.

Speaker 2 (01:24:42):
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, and uh, like a piece of fruit,
you know, like a like a piece of like like
if you went to a farm and got like a berry,
it has yeast on it from the air, you could
just put a little sliver of that into your like
a starter.

Speaker 1 (01:24:55):
And well, a lot of natural wines are actually created
by the natural yeast that occur on the grape skin.

Speaker 2 (01:25:00):
Yeah. So yeah, So anyway, the poolish is like a
perfect marriage between sour dough and yeast dough because it's okay,
and it's a little bit faster, and you make it
every time before you do it. Yeah, so you don't
have to worry about it dying or not dying, or
keep it on your counter or feeding it. You feed
it once, you let it sit until you're ready to

(01:25:21):
use it, and then you use it and you have
like twenty four hours to make it happen.

Speaker 1 (01:25:25):
So oh that's pretty cool. I gotta give it a go. Yeah,
I might work grow with my bagetes. I'm trying to
make that might work pretty well.

Speaker 2 (01:25:30):
Yeah, absolutely, and just I mean I don't have the
exact measurements, but if you look it up, I'm sure
there's a million recipes using poolush.

Speaker 1 (01:25:37):
Well, we've got about two and a half minutes left
in the show. Here, Jeffy and I thought it would
be fun to give some of our tips to people
who are making bread at home. And my first tip
is going to be very very simple. Get a nice
digital scale. They're not expensive on Amazon. Any great recipe
like we started, Like we said in the first break
is generally done by weight, not by volume. Cups, teaspoons,

(01:25:58):
all that are all volume grams ounces, that's all weight,
which is a weight is way more exact. So get
a nice, a nice digital scale and do recipes by weight.

Speaker 2 (01:26:11):
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Definitely, digital scale is like
your first thing if you want to get serious about baking,
that's the thing.

Speaker 1 (01:26:19):
You need to have. What other tips did you give,
Jeffy for me?

Speaker 2 (01:26:23):
I think I would give some like troubleshooting like tips,
Like you know, if you're just getting started making sour dough,
for instance, and you're you're you've got like a flat
loaf and you're not getting enough bubbles, right, I think
you want to I think you want to look at
your dough and think this is probably either overprooved, its flat,

(01:26:45):
or that means your starter is weak. Okay, so you
might like, like, for instance, if your bubbles aren't coming
up and your bread isn't quite getting up to where
you want it with your starter. That means your starter's
weak and you need to feed it more, or maybe oversalted,
or maybe we'll we salted. That's another thing that could
happen for sure, but thinks you got to keep out
for Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:27:05):
And here's the thing. If your bread does overproof, it
doesn't mean you can't bake it. You can still bake it.
It may not be as fluffy, but it's still gonna
taste delicious.

Speaker 2 (01:27:13):
Don't throw it away.

Speaker 1 (01:27:15):
Bake it off and be so and taste it and
use it as an experiment and know next time how
to fix it. Because honestly, overproofing is not always a
terrible thing. It doesn't mean the bread's shot. It just
means it won't be as fluffy.

Speaker 2 (01:27:25):
Yeah, it's just gonna and it's gonna have a little
bit of a sour taste.

Speaker 1 (01:27:28):
Yeah, well sometimes right, Yeah, but it's.

Speaker 2 (01:27:32):
I've overproof stuff and made delicious pretzels out of it.
I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:27:35):
You've been checking out Plumb Love Foods right here w
ice you see the voice of Connected with Chef Plumber,
Chef Jeffy. We appreciate you guys, Happy Saturday to you.
We hope you've enjoyed this program. Hopefully you learn something.
Maybe tonight you go home and make some bread, who knows.
In the meantime, friends, remember food is one of the
most important things we have in life. Everything important life
evolves around food. Let's make sure we give it the
time it deserves. For Chef Jeffy, I'm Chef Plump. Thanks
for checking us out right here wic you see. We'll

(01:27:57):
see you guys next week. Take care of friends,