CrustyJohn's blog

I've been needing to re-stock on whole wheat flour for a while, but I haven't been able to a good a good whole wheat flour from a local or regional small farm/mill.  After a number of weeks getting by without, doing a lot of porridge loaves for something interesting, I caved and bought a bag of Bob's Red Mill whole wheat to tide me over.  It seemed a good occasion to try another whole wheat heavy loaf.

I've heard that spelt ferments fast, so I though perhaps adding it in later might be a good idea.

300g (50%) Bob's Red Mill hard red whole wheat

I've long wanted to try my hand at an imitation of this excellent loaf I had from one of the best bakeries I've tasted bread from: the, sadly, erstwhile Scratch Bakehouse of Syracuse, NY.  

I recently got an order of grains from Redtail Grains, a neat small-scale organic grain farm in NC that focuses a lot on heirloom varietals.  Among that order was some cateto orange polenta which is supposed to be particularly creamy and well-suited to polenta.  So here was my go:

bread flour: 360g (80%)

Further explorations in porridge loaves.  I'm currently out of interesting flours, so it seemed a good time to try something new in the porridge category.  Oats are pretty much always at hand.

Spec.'s: (I think)

350g bread flour

75g white spelt

25g peanut flour

338g water (~75% hydration)

~1tbsp salt

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180g quick oat porridge with ~tbsp lavender a dash of salt and a glug of cane syrup

I've been way behind about typing up notes on my past few loaves.  A couple were nothing new and worth making notes on, but two are worth jotting down even if I've forgotten the details.

Lavender Loaf

Maybe one (well two) of my best loaves ever, I think.  I was really happy with these, especially because I made them for a family gathering, and I'm always afraid of making loaves to share that don't end up turning out to be up to my personal standards.

While searching for injera bread last week, I happened upon some roasted barley at an Ethiopian grocery and bought it thinking it might make a richer variation on my experimentation with barley porridge loaves.

Roasted barley- 250g

water (with a little yogurt mixed in)- 500g + extra 

I got a bag of Rouge de Bourdeaux (85% extraction) flour from Dayspring Farms recently and have been wanting to test out the flavor of it.  Here's a quick write up of my first go-rounds with it.  

My first attempt was a purist attempt to get an unclouded sense of the flour:

100% Rouge de Bourdeaux flour (85%) extraction

80% hydration

standard process and timing (as much as this current heat will allow) except for a slightly longer autolyse

While bread dreaming about the pages of TFL, I came across a forum about a rye loaf with carrots.  I loved the idea and still had a few pounds of mini winter carrots needing to be used up, so I went for it.  I don't make rye heavy loaves often enough (though I should because I love them) to have a set recipe.  Rather than do the wise thing and research, I did the lazy, middle of the week thing and just made it up as I went along.

300g dark rye flour

300g water

some ground flax seed

some whole fennel seed

50(ish)g leaven

After a few years of consistently baking bread, I finally pushed myself to make an occasion to try making baguettes.  I've partly avoided it because I usually make bread once a week for toast and/or sandwiches during the week and because don't really work well with home baking equipment.  

When I was back home in February, I borrowed a baguette shaped pan from my mom.  With this sitting around, I finally conceded.

Once more at the Tartine-style porridge/soaked grain type loaves, this time featuring buckwheat groats soaked in whey.

Bread spec.s:

Central Milling bread flour- 360g (60%)

Dayspring Farm Whole Wheat Flour- 180g (30%)

unspecified Einkorn (home milled by Jessica & James)- 60g (10%)

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leaven- ~55g

water- 400g

Salt- ~4tsp

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unspecified Buckwheat groats (100g) soaked in whey (200g) excess strained off (~35%)

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Process:

I recently read a book on 19th century yeoman farmers in the Georgia upcountry.  As porridge loaves sound rather peasant-like, I decided to make one with a Georgia palate- oats, rye, and whole wheat flower (all typical crops of 19th century subsistence farmers in Georgia), peanut flour (because it sounds very Georgian even if no one was making peanut flour in the 19th cen.), barley (just because I enjoyed the sweet rich flavor in the loaf I made a couple weeks ago).

Bread specs. 2 loaves

Total flour 1000g

Central Milling bread flour- 635g (65%)