Benito's blog

To celebrate my 365 d fermented homemade red miso I decided to try something I’ve never done before.  For ages I’ve seen recipes that use some miso in desserts so I decided to make this crumble cake that uses miso in the crumble topping.  Instead of the white miso is substituted my red miso and because it is much stronger than white I used only 2 tbsp of it in the crumble topping.  

If you’re curious about how to make miso from scratch this is the link to my post from a year ago.

I’ve been thinking about ice cream a lot lately since it has been so hot here in Toronto, really sticky humid.  Going back to my childhood where we never had a single flavour ice cream in the house, it was always Neapolitan because no one could agree on a flavor.  I was finally able to find freeze dried strawberries which is what I thought might work for the strawberry flavor and colour without adding too much liquid to the dough.  For chocolate I used alkalinized dark cocoa powder.

There have been quite a few posts lately regarding various rye breads, after finally getting my hands on a barley malt syrup, I decided I would try to bake one myself.  I had borrowed Southern Ground by Jennifer Lapidus and decided to try baking her Danish Rye bread since I had almost all the ingredients.  Being from the south of the US she includes sorghum syrup which I understand is common there, so I subbed the barley malt in for it.

I received a wonderful surprise this week when I opened an unexpected package sent to me by Anita’s Organic Mill.  They were kind enough to send me the flours, cereal and swag in this photo.

I think ciabattas have been my kryptonite LOL.  Mostly the problem has been dough sticking to the couche.  I now have a 100% flax linen couche.  I used it once previously after seasoning it by rubbing flour into it and then baking baguettes and there was no sticking.  With that experience it was time to bake ciabattas again.  Using the same recipe but trying out Alan’s shaping as per his youtube video.  I needed a bit more flour on the counter but other than that the shaping went well.

We felt like having fish burgers for dinner but only made that decision this morning.  So without any time to make sourdough buns I decided to try making buns with KA’s yeasted burger bun recipe.  Since these are enriched they should still have good flavor even without the benefit of the added sourdough.

Ingredients

Buns (for 4 buns measurement in brackets)

Blueberry Rhubarb has become one of my favourite flavour combinations.  For this iteration I wanted to try using Bravetart’s whole wheat pastry, in my case using whole red fife and less water than her recipe calls for.  I also wanted to try cooking the filling ahead of the bake so that there would be no chance of a soggy bottom with this very wet filling.  The filling was completely cooled before using.  For a regular pie you will have left over filling which is great on ice cream or on your toast.  For a deep dish pie you will have the right amount.

I’ve been meaning to bake this combination for some time now and glad I finally did.  Toasting the walnuts is always a great way to enhance the walnut flavour but in this loaf I also added toasted walnut oil.  

For one 900 g loaf 78% hydration 

311 g white bread flour.        

67 g whole spelt     

266 g warm water          

7.5 g salt  

77 g levain  

21 g water for mixing later 

I haven’t baked plain sourdough baguettes in a while and I thought it would be a good way to test out my new flax linen couche.  You might recall that my old couche, sold to me as being flax linen was in fact 100% cotton and has given me tons of grief each time I’ve tried to bake ciabattas.  The dough would stick no matter how much flour I used.  So I broke down and got a new couche.  I seasoned it by sprinkling then rubbing in white flour.  It did work well and my baguette dough didn’t stick, thank goodness.  The big test will be trying ciabatta again.

One of my favourite combinations on a pizza that I’ve made is the Speck, Parmigiana Reggiano, Peach and Arugula Sourdough Pizza.  Something about the salty speck and cheese, the sweetness of the peaches and peppery arugula is so delicious.

The recipe that follows was originally shared during the pizza community bake, I’ve made some edits so that it works better with my starter and oven.

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

Levain Build 100% hydration 35 g needed

433 g bread flour