Benito's blog

I recently dropped into our local sake maker and picked up another package of koji rice.  My plan was to make my third batch of homemade miso since our first one is disappearing quickly and the second one is just over a month into its fermentation which will take a fully year or so.  However, I borrowed the book Koji Alchemy and have been reading through it and I’m finding it so fascinating and it is giving me some other ideas for my koji rice.

I’ve been baking a lot of milk breads for some time developing the formula to the point that I’m quite happy with it.  So now I’d like to see what I can do with a vegan version of a sourdough milk bread.  This is my first try at a vegan version of a 100% whole wheat milk bread.  My favourite non dairy milk is soy milk and I prefer the Asian soy milk rather than the North American ones as they are slightly sweetened without any added flavours like vanilla so it was easy to decide to use this.

My sourdough Hokkaido milk bread dough is highly versatile, here is a 50% whole wheat version that I’ve spiced with cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg and added mixed candied peel and currants. These are soft, fluffy and not too sweet, they’ll be perfect for breakfast on the long weekend.  This formula uses a stiff sweet levain once again to avoid a sour tang to the bread.  The final pH measured from the baked bun is 5.02 which is remarkable especially considering the 20 hour long cold retard the dough received.

I have a bottle of wine that isn’t my favourite so decided I’d try to make vinegar from it as a fun experiment.  Started on March 28/22.

The easiest method of making vinegar from wine is by using unpasteurized apple cider vinegar which has the mother in it.  Apparently it is Acetobacteraceae that metabolizes alcohol into acetic acid in an aerobic reaction.  If one uses unpasteurized apple cider vinegar the mother should be alive and well.  By adding this to the wine the Acetobacteraceae will convert the ethanol into acetic acid.  

I have several bags of semola rimacinata sitting in my closet that I almost forgot about. So although I have been baking a lot of whole grains I have in the back of my been thinking that I’d like to see what an enriched semolina bread might be like, hopefully it is good.

For those unfamiliar Lap Cheong are the Chinese sausages that are dry cured and super flavourful. I haven’t had these in decades and saw them at the local Chinese market so had to pick up a package. I decided to use them in a filled bun to showcase the flexibility of the SD Hokkaido Milk bread dough. For these buns I decided on a whim to use 50% WW and 50% bread flour. The in addition to the Lap Cheong the filling has oyster sauce and scallions.

I love pie, it is my favourite dessert.  The pie I made last week was great and the pastry was the best most tender all butter pastry for pie crust that I’ve ever used.  If you’re interested in that recipe I shared it here.  This recipe I’m making this week is from The Book on Pie by Erin McDowell.  If you haven’t seen her book yet, it is very good with lots of unique pie ideas.

I had some black sesame seeds that I had ground with some sugar 6:1 ratio a while back for a flavoured milk bread I had made. I felt like having a black sesame flavoured bread so decided to add the ground sesame seeds to my 100% whole wheat sourdough bread. The colour of the dough was fabulous a wonderful grey brown with some black spots from slightly larger bits of black sesame seeds. I unfortunately made a boo boo during the baked and baked at 500°F for 25 mins with steam forgetting to drop the oven temperature.

I have never made brioche before but was so inspired by Melissa’s brioche bubble buns that she shared with us Sourdough bubble top brioche. a while back so I decided since I am on a whole grain kick that I’d try to develop a recipe for sourdough brioche composed of 50% whole wheat. I loved her shaping of these buns so used her method shaping three small boules and baking them in a muffin pan. I used my now standard stiff sweet levain in order to avoid sour tang in the brioche.