Fat Baggie 12 Bar Blues

Now Lucy has her teeth cleaned too!  She isn’t happy about it like we are and bit every vet she could clamp onto before and after the procedure.  Her breath is 1,000% nicer for sure.  So now she will get her teeth cleaned every year since we now have an insurance policy on her through Pets Mart.  She doesnlt know about that yet….

She was feeling funky the day after and wasn’t in the mood to supply me with anything interesting or new for this Friday’s bake so I was left to my own devices, a dangerous thing for sure and likely to cause a small house fire or a police raid of the entire neighborhood if we were lucky.

Picked a ripe pear shaped, cherry tomato this week the 2nd one from a plant that I managed to save through the summer heat from last winter and it bloomed again this fall.  Both the green salad bowl and red romaine lettuce is up and thriving from the seeds I harvested from last year’s crop.

We some pizza and it was very good.  We have thee Smoked Bianco Sausage pizza down pat.

It has been unusually warm this fall so the lettuce didn’t get planted in time for a Thanksgiving salad like usual - but it will be ready for Christmas for sure.  We haven’t had any rain at all for over 3 maybe 4 months but it is cloudy today and it might rain but I’m not holding my breath.

A Brioche Bun Hamburger with cheese and a home made Kosher dill pickle.

Lucy has been outside on the still green grass taking note of the no sunshine and just relaxing so I could get a photo of her without her squinting into the sun.  The Minneolas and navel oranges will be ripe right after Christmas and it is time to fertilize them again for the late rush to ripen.  So things are back to normal around her for the first time in a year.

The 2'fer

This week I decided to bake my favorite SFSD style bread in a way I usually don’t make it.  First off, it is  30% whole 6 grain using my favorite varieties – white and red wheat, Kamut, oat, Spelt and rye in equal amounts with the rest of the flour Albertson’s bread flour that was on sale for 30 cents a pound last week.

The 4 most unusual things about this bake is that I didn’t use any whole grains in the 12% pre-fermented flour, 100% hydration levain, it was all in the dough flour.  None were sprouted either.  I used a 2 hour autolyse to compensate but forgot to add the levain when I put the dough water and salt in and started the 3 sets of slap and folds of 50, 10 and 4 slaps - 30 minutes apart.

We love home made smoked chicken noodle soup for lunch

So the autplyse was 3.5 hours, half with salt and the gluten developed before the levain hot the mix.  I know you are asking -  where was my totally, irresponsible apprentice when this horrible mistake was made?  She was no where to be found and asleep somewhere I’m sure.  She had that look of it’s not my problem master bro- tatochip!

I pretended that there were no slap and folds ever done and just redid them with the levain nicely tucked away inside this time.  I let it rest for an hour after slapping it around for many hours, calling it a short bench ferment.   It didn’t seem to matter much in the end from the looks of things from the finished outside.  The other thing that was different is that I made a shape we don’t use often and a basket that needs to be lined with a rice floured towel.

I’m not a big baguette fan if Don Baggs isn’t making them but I do love Fat Baggies, as much as any fat lover and slightly weird baker could, and that is what this is.  I am pretty pleased with myself and ability to come up with something new and different that turns out pretty well with only a few nasty flaws that were covered up craftily .........and not one lousy, loafing, ankle biting apprentice required!

Since I was a few hours late finishing, I dumped it into an oiled SS bowl covered it in plastic and put it in the fridge for a 10 hour retard.

This morning I got it out of the fridge and let it rest and warm up for 2 hours before doing a quick pre-shape and final shape 20 minutes later.  It went into the lined basket for 1.5 hours of final proof which gave me just enough time to make a mini pre-celebration, ginger, apple pie with snockered cranberries and a secret layer of bananas on top as a surprise.

When making bread, once the mega steam comes out you turn the oven down to 425 F convection which is also the perfect temperature for the first half of a pie bake letting you finish the bread as you get the first half of the pie done.  We like getting a double dose of some good out of the oven with one heating.

This bread blistered, bloomed and sprang quite nicely which is good since I am giving it away.   I might get a crumb shot if he lets me cut it when I give it away as part of the deal-- The pie also browned up great with the egg yolk brushed on top right before it hit the heat.   We like a 2’fer success without being nagged by a whiny apprentice under foot even though she was underfoot just waiting for something to hit the floor.

A favorite winter bloom