Cedarmountain's blog

When I began making bread a few years ago it was with a determination to bake nutritious and wholesome bread. What I did not fully understand or appreciate is the broad scope and variety, the many variables affecting the process, the simple and complex beauty of a well baked loaf of bread. And when I think of the countless varations of bread baked over thousands of years it is humbling to realize that each loaf I bake has very likely been baked before by someone else at another time. This was eloquently expressed in a blog comment by Andy (Syd-a) some years ago on TFL:

I don't know if this would be considered a traditional scone - perhaps a variation on a traditional scone?  Scone purists might even consider it an aberration.  I served these to a nice group of women at a Spring tea event a few years ago and several commented on how much they enjoyed the "biscuits", reminded them of scones!  In my thinking scones are more crumbly, tender whereas a good biscuit is fluffy, almost flaky soft...both benefit from minimal handling and lots of butter.

Common sense suggests to tweak bread recipe variables one at at time so as to be able to better isolate and understand the effect of each variable. That is my usual practice but this was a "let's try all this and see what happens" weekend bake.  

This is today's daily bread...made with rolled oats fermented overnight with levain and water before being mixed into a rye/spelt/Marquis wheat dough along with some chopped almonds; shaped loaves were dusted with sifted bran and some sesame seeds, cold proofed overnight and baked this morning direct from the fridge in pre-heated DOs. 

I was thinking about grass a few days ago while finishing the last lawn mowing of the season and while not really appreciating my lawn grass as such, was struck by the fact that wild grasses are the archetype for the many grains we use to make our bread.  Many species/strains of wheat and other grains can trace their origins as wild grasses that have been cultivated, modified and preserved over many years as food crops.  So, with that in mind, I baked what I decided to call "Grass Bread", as inspired by the grass roots of our modern grains. 

This bread is based on Chad Robertson's Tartine 3 brown rice porridge bread.  As Robertson says, "...combine well-cooked whole grain rice with a highly hydrated whole wheat dough and let the loaves fully ferment with natural leaven to make the nutrients contained within the finished bread readily available for digestion."  I opted to use organic black rice for its rich nutritional value and cut back on the total amount added to the dough to keep the bread a bit lighter; I also added a small amount of oat porridge for complimentary taste and texture.  The dough was mixed with

Sourdough donuts....some coated with cinnamon sugar, some with a cardamom honey glaze.  I used an egg, milk, sugar, butter dough with a sourdough levain; slap and folded, proofed at room temperature for 5 hours; refrigerated over night; rolled/cut into rounds and proofed at room temperature for another 2 hours before deep frying at 350 F for about 2 minutes per side.  I didn't spend a lot of time folding and shaping each donut so they turned out pretty "rustic" looking but I think they tasted pretty good, nice soft bready texture too.   

Oat Flax and Sprouted Barley Sourdough

TFLers have blogged before about the therapeutic benefits of baking bread - this has been my daily bread over the past few months, nourishment for body and spirit in challenging times, my therapy....

This photo was taken at dawn a few days ago. It is a field of heritage Marquis wheat grown by Cedar Isle Farm. They have carefully nurtured an initial very small seed stock over a number of years and now have enough seed to grow Marquis wheat for a modest commercial harvest.  I saw this photo in their Late Spring Update e-newsletter and wanted to share it with the TFL community if for no other reason than it's a beautiful picture!  Here is the accompanying excerpt from the newsletter:

There are many reasons why people bake bread...for many it is a basic necessity of daily life to feed themselves and their families; for some it is a business while for others it is simply an enjoyable pastime, a hobby.  That's why I started baking bread a few years ago, just a hobby.  But after many loaves baked over the past few years I have come to appreciate there is much more to this hobby than I first thought; the reason I bake bread is because of the meditative and calming nature of the process, the honest and universally understood gesture of sharing fresh b