dabrownman's blog

I have been wanting to do some whole rye and whole wheat SD baguettes that has at least 20% whole grains.  I wasn't going for holes but for taste.  The starter was a Rye and WW one as well.   I also told teketeke that I would try her baguettes she makes with YW and I am becoming a real YW convert  Since her baggies are YW using white flours, this doesn't qualify for doing hers yet but I didn't want her to think I had forgotten. The SD is nice and sour and YW is not.  Both have the same moist crumbthat is fairly open for so much whole flours.

The first time I made limoncello I used the skins of 7 lemons per liter of grain alcohol and let the the grain sit on the skins for 20 days to extract the oil from skins and then let it age another 20 days to mello after straining filtering and cutting with sugar syrup 5o-50.  I used 454 g of sugar per liter of water and liter of lemon oil alcohol extraction.  It was a real Amalfi Coast recipe from Villa di Marie but I didn't like it that much even though it tasted just like the too many samples I had in Italy and couldn't get enough of. 

These sweet little jewels are made with home made puff paste and lemon curd with a little dollop of cream cheese to make it interesting.

The retarded loaf came out almost identical to the non retarded one.  It was perhaps a little more sour.  Tasting the non retarded one from yesterday, it is more sour today and about the same sour as the retarded one just out of the oven.  I would guess the retarded boule will be even more sour tomorrow too.  This bread is hard to make but worth it.  I never had a bread that tastes like it, the crust is dark and softens as it cools, the crumb is moist and open, for 40% whole grain bread.  It is one of the best breads I have ever had, much less baked.&

Had to make a couple of changes to Sweetbird’s hugely fantastic, far better than magnificent, Buckwheat Bread recipe that can be found here:

 http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/27784/buckwheatpear-sourdough-pear-hard-cider#comments

Was getting ready for tomorrow's Sweetbird Buckwheat and Apple SD Bread bake and for once was organized enough to pinch off some of the buckwheat starter and make some lovely SD pancakes for breakfast.  I took 30 g of refreshed buckwheat starter and added;  60 G of bread flour, 60 g of buckwheat flour and 120 g of milk.  After mixing I let it stand on the counter for 1 hour and then in the fridge overnight for 8 hours.  This morning I took it out of the fridge and let it stand on the counter for 1 hour before mixing in 1 tsp of honey, a large pinch of salt,  1/

Ian is well known for his interesting and delicious bread combinations.   I had taken his BPOC SD and made it into an even stranger bread by replacing his Semolina with 5% each; WW, Whole Rye and Whole Spelt.  For his bacon, cheese onion and potato I used; home made apple smoked pork jowl, ancient white vapor cheddar, caramelized onions and potato flakes.  The bread came out beautiful inside and out and was just plain delicious.  Definitely one of the 10 breads in my top 5 (actually it is one of the top 3).

I've been making as many things as I can with oranges to try to use up this past years crop before donating the rest to the food bank.  So I've been  making orange marmalade.  Several years ago I forgot that I had marmalade on the stove and it nearly burned but it was just darkly caramelized like a flan.  So marmalade in this house now comes light, medium and dark just like the bread crust and crumb does.  No wonder jam and bread go so well together.  I think it was MiniOven that said when you think the bread is done, leave it in the oven 5 more minut

A blend of Seigle d’Auvergne and Borodinski where diastatic malt is used in the dough on the French side and non diastatic malt with scalded rye berries is used on the Russian side.  Thank goodness no retardation is required, no matter how nice it would be, to produce a nearly classic clash of multicultural bread with different colored malts and multi grain flours that ends up being slightly unique in the end - in a peaceful and united way.   The loaf rose well during final proof but the spring was more of a sprawl.  The crust is chewy the crumb is moist, soft and quite