dabrownman's blog

Here we ae in the primary season in AZ and they have mailed out the early ballots to those who have signed up.  I was shocked to find that every candidate who was ever in the race on the Democrat and Republican side is still on the ballot ……even though many have dropped put.  But, there was one addition that no one knew was even running – the CEO of Apple Inc. – Tim Cook.  Who knew!  I’m guessing in he gets elected, Apple won’t be cracking open their phones any time soon.

After last weeks; 7 starter 17 grain sprouted bred it was time to tame it down because we are out of white bread.  We love white bread but have found that one with multi sprouted whole grains really makes it taste so much better, plus it is much healthier – it even smells better too!

After getting Alan in trouble with his latest higher whole grain (25%) SJSD baguettes, Lucy felt terrible about it and when he shot back a challenge bread for her with a 7 Stater,  4 Sprouted Grain bread after last week’s 4 Starter, 7 Grain Bread. 

The first of this year's volunteer daisies popped up on my birthday last week

1/1/2016 - New Year’s Eve Pizza – 2015

1/5/2016 - Westphalian Pumpernickel – 1537

1/8/2016 -  3 Starter Italian Olive Bread with Rosemary and Sun Dried Tomato

This the 2nd try at this recipe, this time using txfarmer’s intensively kneaded method to see what the difference in the bread might be between our normal method of developing gluten using slap and folds and stretch and folds.  Last Fridays bake can be found here 4 Starter Sprouted 7 Whole Grain Sandwich Bread so I don’t have to repeat it or the recipe again.

Lucy was intrigues by David Snyder’s recent repost of his 2011 WW yeast bread from BBA using txfarmer’s intensive kneading technique.  We aren’t much into yeast breads or enriched yeast breads but any technique that might lighten the load of whole grain SD breads is worth a try. 

I should have figured that once Lucy found out that I wanted to try out dobie’s no baking equipment except an oven, bowl and hands, she would try to make my life miserable with this weeks bread recipe – 11 grain sprouted ciabatta rolls, with wheat sprouts in the baked scald,

Normally the water content of ciabatta is critical and developing the gluten in a mixer is almost a must…..so with mo scale, mixer, dough scraper or even a spoon this was a challenge to say the least.

After last week’s brick bake of a no levain pumpernickel Lucy decided to get some sourdough in there and cut back on the long, low bake by 5 hours and upping the heat.  It is loosely based on Mini Oven’s fine rye bread here Mini's 100% Dark Rye & Chia Recipe ...Love at 104% hydration.

After the last over bake of no levain, old school pumpernickel which made a brick that couldn’t be cut with a ban saw, Lucy decided to go back to 3 starters for this bake.  We had some left over olives from the New Year’s pizza and we have always wanted to make SD version of that dough to bake as an olive Italian style bread or focaccia.  We finally got around to it.

After Gerhard posted the video of a Westphalian bakery making old school pumpernickel the same way since 1537I knew Lucy would be getting it on the bake list pretty fast since she claims the only real bread is pumpernickel if you are German like her.