Shiao-Ping's blog

First of all, I have to say that I feel uncomfortable every time when I refer to MacGuire's set of procedure Pain de Tradition procedure.  As I indicated in [url=http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/12866/james-j-macguire039s-pain-de-tradition/][b]my first post[/b][/url] that, in the Winter 2006 issue of The Art of Eating magazine,  Nos 73+74 (note: a 20th Anniversary Double Issue) where I got this method, it is entitled "A Full-Flavoured, Minimum-Kneading, All-Included Recipe

I wanted to see if James MacGuire's Pain de Tradition procedure would improve my San Francisco Sourdough.  My formula is as follows:

220 g San Francisco starter @75% hydration (ie, 126 g white bread flour and 94 g water)

374 g white bread flour

306 g water

10 g salt

2 g instant dry yeast

(ie, total flour is 500 g and total water is 400 g)

As I had such a lovely result from my last [url=http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/12866/james-j-macguire039s-pain-de-tradition/][b]Pain de Tradition[/b][/url] using white flour, I thought I'd give it a try with whole-wheat flour.   James said to make a miche de campagne, substitute 15% whole-wheat or up to 10% medium rye for part of the white flour, so my 100% whole-wheat version isn't conventional. 

Many TFL users would recognise Mr James J. MacGuire's name as he is the technical editor for Prof. Raymond Calvel's "The Taste of Bread."   In a 10 page article entitled,[b] "The Baguette" [/b]in the Winter 2006 issue of Mr Edward Behr's quarterly magazine "The Art of Eating," ie. No 73+74 issue, Mr  MacGuire's message about a good French traditional bread is very clear: slow & gentle mixing with autolyse, long fermentation, and high hydration.  

My son asked if I could make hot cross buns for Easter three months ago, so I Googled the recipe and a whole new world opened up to me.  Up until then, I had hardly used internet recipes, and guess what - the first hot cross bun recipe that I came across was Dan Lepard's recipe and it came with this excerpt from [url=http://www.danlepard.com/content/pages/dan.htm/]Dan's website[/url]:

My daughter will be away for her 17th birthday at the end of this month.  She and four other Year-12 students are representing Australia in an International Young Physicists Tournament in China and are leaving this Saturday.  My husband had asked if I wanted to go along and help with the language translation.  I said No because I think the kids can do with a bit of freedom (and excitement) in a foreign country.  And, sure enough, because the mummy doesn't want to go, the daddy had conveniently engineered a business trip to be up there at the same time - the daddy and the

I love pumpkin, but when my husband came home with three huge pumpkins, I worried.  What am going to do with all these pumpkins, I asked. I got no reply.   He had gone camping with our son and our son's friend at our farm, two hours north west of Brisbane.  The caretaker's wife keeps a small patch of vegetable garden and every now and then she gives me something from her vege garden.  My favorite are cherry tomatoes and silverbeets.   These pumpkins are from her garden too.     

1983, I was in my mid-20's in Boston doing my final year of post graduate studies under Rotary scholarship.  A memorable year as it was the first time ever in my life that I went overseas.  My host family, Bob, is from Armenia and Maria, Germany; both came to America in their late teens.  One day they drove me to New York to visit the Metropolitan Museum.  We had lunch at a posh side walk cafe; the waiter brought us curious black color bread rolls.  As Maria was eating, she couldn't stop raving about these dense looking bread 

I have been having problems with my San Francisco starter.  This is the only starter that I have used so far that is not home grown.  It is not as vigorous as what I am used to.  This is the third time I've used it to make sourdough but I'm still not getting the open crumb that I want.  I am documenting it because my husband claims that it is the best sourdough I've made so far.  He absolutely loved the flavor and could not stop raving about it.  He said "it's long in the palate, like wine."   

Goji is one of the most anti-oxidant berries in the world.  Tibet is a barren country; they don't have much produce but they have Goji in abundance.  In the health food stores in Brisbane, I sense a fab going on with these Tibetan Goji berries.  They sell for a lot of money but in China and Taiwan they are dirt cheap - you buy them from Chinese herbal medicine stores.  As kids, we were told to have plenty of them as they are very good for your eye sight (or so the Chinese herbal doctors have us believe).  A dish that my mother often made whe