alfanso's blog

Another batch of Vermont SD, ho-hum.  However this time I decided to score these differently as well as some pre-shaping changes and a more gentle final shaping.  Which I'll attribute to the shorter and slightly stubbier look of these 

In the spirit of Abel's Ziggy scoring, which I've done  few times now - I decided to try a cross cut, "x's" all down the length of the dough.  And wound up with two distinct looks.

For high hydration levains, I've exclusivly used a 125% hydration rye levain for more than a year now, but wanted to return to from whence it came.  This is another Vermont SD, retuning to Mr. Hamelman's 125% hydration AP flour levain formula.  It is just a lovely Pain au Levain bread.  Thin crisp crust and open sweet and "sparkling" crumb.

Hamelman Golden Raisin Bread, alfanso style.  With no evidence posted of this being made as baguettes, well, that opened the door for me with a welcome mat.

With my brother and sister-in-law in town I baked a few semolina-fennel seed-golden raisin-toasted pine nut baguettes (that's a mouthful - in more ways than one) and then followed that up with a batch of Vermont SDs.

Another in Abel's ongoing postings of embarrassingly wonderful bakes:  His Ziggy stoneground loaf from mid-January caught my fancy, and I was sure that when the time was appropriate, I'd try my hand at his scoring technique here.  Well, the time is appropriate.  With neighbors coming over for some wine, bread and cheese this afternoon, I figured, why not now?

Earlier this month, Joze (joc1954) posted his Barley-Rye Bread, a lovely dense nutty boule.  Having a bag of barley on hand but never using it before, I decided to give it a go.  But, as with my usual linear uncircular bread self, as baguettes.

Above: chocolate babka filling and cinnamon swirl

At the start of this month, Abel posted his version of a Pain Viennois, a bread I'd not ever heard of before, but it is a pretty darn good looking loaf.  At least the way he does it!  Much more appealing than the "traditional" version which looks more like a baguette in shape and adorned with as many as 20 or so scores diagonally down its length.  

Abel Sierra posted another in his series of fascinating outside-of-the-box things that one can do with just Flour Water and Salt two weeks ago.  And I am indeed fascinated at the breadth of what one can do creatively with just these three ingredients.   And that also meant another that I would warehouse until the time came.  Which was now!

A fabulous and incredibly informative set of email exchanges on Mariana’s part a few weeks ago had me:

The first time I tried Maurizio's 50-50 I added figs and pecans and had an unusual experience with: shaping as baguettes / retarding / unretarding / reshaping the three as one batard / and finally retarding again.  All documented here.