A few days ago David Snyder posted his version of the San Francisco Baking Institute's pain au levain (almost) all AP flour batard. Seeing this as the equivalent of an open invitation, I decided it was time to strike quickly. And I'm so glad I did.
It's been a while, since May, that I posted here. Off to the northern reaches of the Atlantic seaboard for family time in NY, and then further upstream to the Boston area where I joined Varda and Joan in a bread session at their Bread Obsession for a wonderful two weeks. As soon as we arrived back home we had family visit here for a week, and now I'm finally catching up on day-to-day life.
With an early get-away tomorrow morning for a road trip north for family affairs, I just had to get in two final bakes. The first was the Hamelman Pain au Levain with whole wheat. Which I've raved about endlessly. For a twist, I aded some diced fresh apple and toasted walnuts. The walnut flavor this time, having been toasted, came through strong, but the apple still held back on the flavor profile. Back to the drawing board.
which coincides with Not Enough of a Good Thing, Part 1.
This time it was the Hamelman Pain au Levain with WW. This is the same bread that I made a week ago but then used my own levain and added figs and pecans. This time I built the dough heeding to the original formula, which carries less whole grain and no additions than what I made last week.
My recent fruit and nut bake garnered the suggestion from a few TFL folks that I should soak the dried Calmyrna figs prior to folding them into the dough. And so I did. I wonder if I soaked them too long because they expanded and became a force all of their own with relation to the final product.
First time out of the starting gate baking with figs - calmyrna figs. As a child, figs were about as close to repulsive to my nascent taste buds and sensibilities as eating bugs. My, how a half dozen decades have changed that.
Still practicing those double scores across the batards. And one little baguette, because, well, you know... It's a tough job, but someone has to do it.
No, we aren't revisiting the Roaring 20's or peeking at undergarments here (at least not right now!). Once more with a batch of the dmsnyder based Semolina Capriccioso, with a twist courtesy of alfanso. Since these are capricious by moniker I decided to give them each a different look. One long and one chubby batard, one and two scores across them respectively.
"I Got Back Jack and did it again..."
Once more with my SJSD inspired rye baguettes with caraway seeds. But with a new twist and the formula sheet, now that it has been "time tested". For a small change of direction I decided to make these as Gros Baguettes, 450g each. So they are pretty hefty, and I wouldn't expect to see these in many bakeries. But it worked. The formula:
SJSD based Rye with Caraway Seeds
Yes. I know. I've posted these before. But I decided to post a video of baking these lovely baguettes from the time that they come out of retard until they come out of the oven. Less than a 4 minute investment of your time if you care to watch it.
alan
