bnom's blog

Have an excess of zucchini blossoms in your garden?  Here's what I did with a little leftover dough (Hamelman's French bread) thin sliced mortadella, fresh mozzerella. I tossed the zucchini blossoms with a little olive oil and S&P and tossed them on the pizza for the last minute or so in the oven.  Shaved some parmegiano reggiano on at the end and bellisima!  

I decided that my first by-the-book recipe I'd make from Hamelman's Bread would be Vermont Sourdough with Increased Whole Grain.  I had my starter bubbling, my scale ready, started adding ingredients to the bowl and--wait a minute--this can't be right.  The formula was clearly incorrect (It turns out that I just happened to choose the Bread recipe most fraught with errors).  So I  improvised the best I could. 

My love affair with my 50 year old GE Hotpoint 40" range has been, literally, on and off these past few weeks. 

I got a new stone last week and have made two batches of a sourdough formula I've developed.  First the stone is a 15 x 20 Fibrament-D and I love that I can bake three longish loaves.  However, my first bake was disappointing...I got pretty flat loaves. I suspected the error was mine and not the stones.

The problem with buying specialty flours from the bulk food section is distinquishing the bags from another in my pantry. Those little scribbles on the twist ties don't really help.  Anyway, on Sunday I thought I'd make a rye using my rye sourdough starter. It wasn't until the flour hit the water that I began to notice the greyish color. Ah, this is that buckwheat I bought.

The formula:

300 g firm starter

620 g water

750 g unbleached AP flour (530 g Morbread 12% protein, and 200 g Whole Food AP)

100 g wheat bran

23 g salt

The technique was similar to the San Joaquin Sourdough posted on Fresh Loaf

Submitted to Wild Yeast's Yeast Spotting: http://www.wildyeastblog.com/category/yeastspotting/

Today, finally, I got some bloomin ears!  

I've been playing with Susan (Wild Yeast) Norwich Sourdough and Floyd's San Joaquin sourdough on this site. I found the first too firm and sour, the second too slack and not sour enough, so I worked out my own formula...a happy marriage between the two.  And lo and behold---ears for the first time ever (in a dough not cooked in a dutch oven).  As it happens, I donated the bread for a friend's dinner party so no crumb shots.