Blog posts

Ok we'll start with the most obvious difference:  QUANTITY

I’ve been feeling uneasy these days, and, perhaps in solidarity, my starter has, too. For a few months now, it’s been highly acidic which has cut down on its ability to promote yeast growth. For my usual deli rye – 45% whole rye/10% whole spelt/45% bread flour -- I mixed the levain and, after 12 hours on the counter, it was clear that it had not progressed in the right direction. It felt and looked dead -- just a non-responsive grey lump.

Aim: 

To covert a commercial yeast Semolina bread formula, into a low dose sourdough formula.

Dosa is an Indian flatbread made from just fermented rice and lentils, water and salt. It's exceptionally crunchy, slightly tangy, and utterly delicious. It's usually eaten with a chutney, raita, or some spicy potatoes. 

I made mine with raw short grain white rice and raw black lentils (it's usually made with black gram, which is not that readily available in the shops here). I soaked rice to lentils using a 3:1 ratio overnight. The next day, I blended the rice and lentils with as little water as possible to make a thick pancake-like batter. 

I ran out of all forms of wheat flour - which is what I typically add to whatever preferment - so had to come up with something for the rye biga I had already made yesterday night. I ended up adding more rye and buckwheat, making this a 80% medium rye, 20% buckwheat loaf, with 60% of the rye pre-fermented in the biga.

I attempted pandoro for new year's and am quite proud of the result! Very similar process to panettone (lievito madre, 2 doughs, obscene amounts of egg yolks and butter). The crumb is tighter than panettone and it doesn't have the same riot of flavors and ingredients (no candied fruit or raisins or chocolate, for example). But there's something more elegant about its simplicity? It's like a very nice brioche, but with that beguiling texture of these long-fermented dessert breads (soft but toothsome). I made a 1kg batch and split it between 2 500g star-shaped molds. 

Happy 2026 to The Fresh Loaf community! May your starters thrive and your loaves delight you and yours!

David

1Jan

The world renowned, iconic, Maltese Pastisti.

For my final bake of 2025 I decided to try something I’ve wanted to for some time.  I love chestnuts, when we were kids, my parents would buy them and we’d roast them.  We had to shell them which wasn’t fun but really isn’t that difficult, but it was so worth it since chestnuts are just yummy.  So for this Hokkaido Milk Bread I’ve added chestnuts two ways.  Some are added as inclusions, chopped.  The majority of them were cooked in milk and then blended.  I used this “chestnut milk” as the hydration for the tangzhong.