Benito's blog

I’ve not made a porridge yet to add to any 100% whole grain bread so thought it was high time to try.  I have a bag of the new Harvest Flakes from Anita’s Organic Mill that they sent me to try out.

No these aren’t 100% whole spelt baguettes. Although I’ve been on a 100% whole grain baking spree I still prefer my baguettes mostly white flour but wanted to try some spelt in a baguette since I realized that I haven’t yet. So this formula is similar to the kamut baguettes I’ve posted before with spelt instead. As well, I changed the levain to a stiff 60% hydration levain.

Sorry about yet another Hokkaido milk bread, I’m still trying to improve this recipe. To do so I have increased both the tangzhong and the hydration of the dough to increase the moisture in the crumb. I’ve finally created a spreadsheet to make documenting these changes easier.

I'm still working on learning to bake with 100% whole spelt since I received a lovely Christmas present of a 2 kg bag of Anita's Organic Whole Spelt from the mill!  So to also learn about about the use of a stiff sweet levain I thought I'd use one in this non enriched dough for the first time.  As you may know having a significant amount of sugar in the starter creates osmotic pressure causing the microbes to dehydrate.  This has a greater negative effect on the LAB than it does on the yeast.

I've been meaning to make these sablés for some time.  I've adapted a recipe I found in Jennifer Lapidus' book Southern Ground.

YIELD: ABOUT 40 COOKIES

240g (2⅔ cups) whole-rye flour

270g (2¼ cups) whole einkorn flour

390g (1¾ cups) unsalted butter, at room temperature

180g (1 cup) granulated sugar, plus more for sprinkling, I would use turbinado sugar for coating in the future rather than granulated

½ teaspoon fine sea salt

100g (4 ounces) bittersweet chocolate, chopped

For 20 cookies

It is time for another two pizza nights as it had been some time since our last pizzas.  If you haven’t tried tuna on pizza you owe it to yourself to try it.  Make sure you buy good Italian tuna in olive oil, not the North American canned tuna because the Italian tuna is so much better.  Since trying it several years ago I just can’t eat other canned tuna anymore, they are just lacking something in both texture and flavour.

For 4 9” pizzas NY style thin crust 200 g each 

Levain Build 100% hydration 35 g needed 

My final bake of 2021, a bit overproofed I’d say based on the bit of spreading. We’ll see when it is sliced, it could also have more hydration than the flours could take, that is another possibility to explain the spread. Without the porridge the hydration is 80% with the porridge the hydration is over 100%.
Unfortunately I didn’t weigh the grains, black sesame seeds with the water and milk in the pot prior to cooking them, so I don’t know what the final weight was since I had to add quite a bit more milk to compensate for the water cooking off.

I received a 2 kg bag of Anita’s Organic Mill sprouted whole spelt last week and was excited to try working with more spelt than I have in the past. I haven’t had the best of results with spelt. As you know The gliadin/glutenin ratio is significantly higher in spelt at 3.5, than in wheat at 2. As a result spelt’s gluten is more extensible and less elastic. This typically results in spelt loaves spreading and not achieving good oven spring. That has been my experience with whole spelt.

We are visiting my in-laws for Christmas, it has been so long since we’ve done this, and we have to bring bread right? A baker cannot arrive empty handed. So with my sister in law’s taste in mind I had to bake a sandwich bread. She practically lives on buttered toast. To try to make a variation on my other whole wheat Hokkaido loaves I decided to add my favourite seeds to this loaf, black and white sesame seeds. I realized it has been ages since I’ve added seeds to my breads so it was long overdue. I reduce the dough weight a bit to compensate for the addition of the seeds.

I’ve never had Bara Brith before, it is a traditional Welsh bread, however, it can be made more like a cake using baking powder.  A baker from the UK posted her recipe which seemed so simple so I decided to try baking it.  As I kid I hated Christmas cake, but as with so many things as I’ve gotten older I’ve grown to like more things I used to dislike.