Benito's blog

We frequently get questions around here about how to take care of your starter.  I thought I’d share what I do which is simple and waste free so long as you plan your bakes a bit ahead of time.

There has been some interest in using pH to help guide fermentation of our dough.  Before purchasing a pH meter I used percent rise to guide fermentation and make decisions, however, there are times when it doesn’t seem to be very accurate.  If you’re interested in learning how to use an Aliquot jar then have a look at this post I made a while ago.  By posting this I am not claiming to be a master at using pH, I am simply sharing what I do now based on trial and error.

A recent blog post about grain mash is awesome if you haven’t read it yet. Reading it motivated me to apply saccharification to the polenta porridge thinking it might enhance the flavour of the polenta. As you know saccharification of the polenta brings out its sweetness that is hidden in the starches in the polenta.

Having friends over and wanted to offer fresh bread with our meal. I wanted something that could be easily timed to be ready this morning that I could quickly warm up at dinner time. In order to reduce the work to do today I prepared the levain Thursday night, Friday morning it was ready and I placed it into the fridge. Friday afternoon I prepared the dough and did bulk and placed the dough in the fridge overnight for the cold retard. I don’t usually cold retard these milk breads because I don’t want them to be sour.

This is another variation on my 100% whole wheat SD Hokkaido Milk Bread which has become my favourite sandwich bread.  It is so soft and fluffy for a 100% whole grain bread and keeps so well because of the tangzhong. In this variation, I use the classic 1:5 ratio of grain to milk for the tangzhong but instead of flour I used an organic steel cut seven grain blend of wheat, barley, rye, oats, flax, millet and buckwheat and cook it as I would the tangzhong until it is nicely thickened.  The rest of the procedure is the same as my other SD Hokkaido Milk Breads.

I’ve never made a tart with a chocolate pastry before so decided it was time to try.  The first recipe I tried must have had a typo in it as it was more like a loose batter than pastry dough.  After tossing that attempt in the bin I decided to modify the pâté sucrée recipe that I’ve had success with by adding cocoa powder and a bit of vanilla.  It certainly baked up well so let’s hope it tastes good too.

I still had some anko (red bean paste) in my freezer from over a year ago and decided it was time to use it up.  Since I hadn’t made mochi in so long I thought it was high time to make Daifuku Mochi again but this time with matcha.  So I followed the same recipe except this time added 5 g of matcha powder.  I forgot how dark the matcha becomes when water is added and would probably try only 3 g next time.  The trade off might be the matcha flavour though which was perfect with the 5 g.

My first attempt at a Gluten Free bread.  I used a recipe I found on the net, since I needed somewhere to start and wanted to bake a hearth loaf.  I think I had some success but overfermented a bit.  I would certainly reduce the IDY more than I did already to slow things down.  By the time the oven was ready, there were quite a few holes in top of the dough in the banneton.

My list of things I’d like to bake keeps getting longer but today I finally struck this one off my list. For some time I’ve wanted to try adding polenta to my sourdough bread. Alfanso has shared Kingdom Bread Tampa’s recipe for polenta bread so I based my recipe on that with some minor alterations (thank you Alan). When there is a small amount of wholegrain in the dough I like to use it in the levain, that way the bran is fully hydrated. I increased the polenta and the percentage of salt I used is based on the flour and the polenta while theirs was based on the flour alone.

Building on my successful 50% WW SD Challah I baked last week I decided to bake a 100% WW version. I think based on the appearance that I was patient enough with the final proof and didn’t under ferment it this time. I didn’t want to take a chance with weak gluten so I did add VWG to this one since there is no strong flour.