Cher504's blog

Wishing all you bakers out there a healthy and sweet New Year. This year for Rosh Hashanah I made Maggie Glezer's Pan de Calabaza. This recipe is in her book "A Blessing of Bread" which is so interesting. It tells the back stories (and  the formulas, of course) for all kinds of traditional Jewish breads from all over the world. There's babkas, pita, challahs, Lithuanian, Greek and Ethiopian breads. If you're looking for the Pan de Calabaza formula, it's been posted at least twice on this site.

Several weeks ago, I started a new rye sour - Lucy's way [http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/43019/really-dark-old-school-sprouted-pumpernickel-–-memory-barbra]

This Sweetie Pie is basically a Tartine style loaf employing 100% hydration rye sourdough with added raisins, pecans and mashed sweet potato - yum! I found the recipe here:

http://girlmeetsrye.blogspot.com/2014/04/sweetie-pie.html

    This week two more versions of Raisin Pumpernickel were added to the odyssey. One round - using rye/yeast water levain and one in a loaf pan - that one used only instant yeast for leavening. I'm getting closer; both breads are great tasting but I still have a ways to go with my rye skills - shaping, transferring from basket to peel, and judging when they're proofed enough and ready to go into the oven. 

I've been searching for Hodgson Mills Graham Flour since reading about Zolablue's Grandmother's Brown Bread. 

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/2630/memos-brown-bread   

 “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…It was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair….”

Intrigued by the idea of grape skin flour (purple bread!?) I took the bait and ordered a flour made from cabernet sauvignon grapes. Looks like cocoa powder...          

I baked Eric's Favorite rye for the first time today, on account of there might be some corned beef in my near future. After only 35 minutes proofing, my finger poke test revealed one loaf seemed really ready to be baked and I was worried about waiting for the other one to catch up since they were proofing on the same piece of parchment. The kitchen was quite warm as the oven was on full tilt. As you can see in the photos, the one one the right had a pretty explosive reaction to the steaming oven...that was the one that seemed like it wanted to wait another 15 minutes. 

Sour Cherry

Strawberry Rhubarb

      Today I'm documenting this sour rye bread so I can remember what I did and not have to look back thru multiple threads to find my way. My last sour rye came out really well, but today I wanted to add in a few more ideas culled from various posters. From ehanner: using water from rehydrating onions as part of the dough water. From Norm: going all the way to 100% with the rye sour component, and bulk fermenting in a wet wooden box (well, I used a salad bowl).