BobS's blog

A while ago I wrote a post, Life With Fred; Maintaining a Starter In Pictures, about how I maintain my starter; an approach focused on minimizing both waste and stress. The starter, Fred, seemed pretty resilient. While I usually baked every week or two, sometimes Fred would cool his heels in the fridge for a month or more. I wondered how long he could go between feedings and still remain viable. I knew that dabrownman was taking a similar no-waste, laissez-faire approach.

This summer we had the occasion to pass by the King Arthur bakery and store in Norwich, VT several times. The cafe is quite good, and we tried to time our visits for lunch or dinner. Of course, we always pick up some bread to scope out too. One of these was a walnut ciabatta that had a remarkably nutty flavor. Couldn't figure out what was in there until I saw a 'walnut raisin ciabatta' in V2 of Hamelman: ah, toasted wheat germ.

You find these muffins in places with an Azorean Portuguese population, like SE Massachusetts, where I've eaten plenty of them. Crisp on the outside, soft on the inside. Sort of a cross between Portuguese Sweet Bread and English Muffins. But better. Great at breakfast or tea-time, with or without butter. These are tarted up a bit with a biga and some lemon peel.

Biga

This is my second take on the SBFI Finnish Rye. Didn't get so much spring on the first take, but it was tasty and seemed pretty popular. I only got one slice out of two loaves.

This time I focused on a little more gluten development, mixing for about 8 minutes, then adding the soakers and mixing for another 3-4. Bulk ferment was 3 hours with three folds, final proof about an hour both at 78F. Also added a couple of Tbs of vital gluten to the mix. The dough is pretty sticky stuff; wet hands help.

The recent posts from wassisname and limmitedbaking got me hankering to try this bread.

I used the formula here http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/34729/polenta-pepita-sourdough, but, as happens in the Hippie Kitchen, modified the method:

Some days you're the hydrant.

This one was a dog day. Baguettes with poolish from Hamelman, but a little bit wetter. This baguette stuff is tricky.

Not posting much lately, but still fiddling around. One of the things I've been doing is messing with a formula that typecase posted here: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/35925/need-help-scaling-recipe. Not quite there yet, but here's what the latest spin on it looks like.

Film at 11

I recently took the 'Artisan Baking at Home I' course at the King Arthur Baking Education Center in Norwich, VT. I pondered whether it would be worthwhile, as I'm a not-a-beginner home baker and (thought I) was familiar with a lot of the material in the course description. I finally decided to go as I was sure to pick up some tips from the pros, and taking the course would allow me to see and feel the various doughs. And I could mess around with dough and commercial equipment for four days in a row with other breadheads. I'm glad I went.

It took a few days to recover from bread overload I got at the Boston TFL meetup (thanks so much for organizing, Varda). Time to try something new.  Pumpkin seed bread from the Seven Stars Bakery in Providence, RI as described by MC Farine has been on the list for a while.

We had a can of pumpkin puree kicking around. I'm tired of the usual pumpkin quick bread and wanted something lighter.  Some time ago our paper had a braided yeast-raised pumpkin bread, originally from King Arthur. I started there and somehow ended up here:

Sorry, no crumb shot; the good light was gone by the time I sliced it.

I'm going to try another spin, this time with a preferment to punch it up a bit; then I think this one will be done.