dmsnyder's blog

Sourdough Bread with Spelt and T85 Flours

David M. Snyder

September, 2024

While I am very happy with the multigrain sourdough bread I have been making in recent years, I am still interested in trying new flour mixes. In this instance, I have been wanting to use some Central Milling T85 flour I ordered, prompted by Maurizio Leo’s fondness for this flour and inspired by his “Rustico” sourdough bread recipe in “The Perfect Loaf.”

Sourdough Bread baked the same day as mixed versus baked after overnight cold retardation.

David Snyder

February, 2024

About a dozen years ago, I developed a version of my San Joaquin Sourdough (SJSD) that was inspired by a type of Italian bread. While SJSD is a lean bread with mixed flours that is cold retarded before dividing, the Italian version was made with AP and Durum flour and was enriched with both sugar and olive oil. It was still cold retarded in bulk.

Pan de Cristal

David Snyder

September, 2023

Pan de Cristal is a bread that has intrigued me for some time. It is a white bread similar to an Italian ciabatta but of even higher hydration. I was a bit spooked by the anticipated challenge of handling such a wet dough until I viewed the instructional video made by Martin Philip, the fellow who took Jeffrey Hamelman’s place as head baker at King Arthur Bakers.

I have been aware of Maurizio Leo through his social media postings for some time. He is a home baker, but an extremely serious one who comes from a restaurant family. Eventually, I discovered his blog (ThePerfectLoaf dot com)  and found him to be an articulate and generous mentor for home bakers. More recently, he has published a baking book. It is more on the model of Tartine Bread or Forkish's books than, say, Hamelman"s. But Leo's recipes are very well documented and look really good. His book, "The Perfect Loaf," won a James Beard Award this year. 

Whole Wheat Sourdough

David Snyder

3/19/2023

Back in 2016, I was on a quest for a whole wheat sourdough bread I liked enough to want to bake often. I baked breads from a number of my favorite bread cookbooks, and none were bad. This bread was of my own formulation, and, as I recall, it was the one I liked the best. In spite of my good intentions at the time, I have not baked it again since. I think it just got forgotten. Flipping through my Sourdough Bread looseleaf recipe binder, I came across the formula and decided to make it again.

Hansjoakim was a regular contributor to thefreshloaf for a long time, He was a physics graduate student at the time, as I recall, and an amazingly adventurous and talented chef and baker. In September, 2009 he posted what he called his "favorite 70% rye." I asked him for the formula and baked it myself a week later. It was easy to see why it was a favorite. It was an easy dough to handle for a 70% rye, and it was delicious to eat.

 I first posted a formula for a naturally leavened  pugliese bread 11 years ago. I fiddled with the formula and procedure a bit over several years, but I haven’t made this bread in about 6 years. Today’s version is different from some of the ones I have made before in a couple respects: First, I use an all-white flour biga rather than a mixed grain liquid levain. And, second, I hand mixed rather than using a stand mixer. 

Today I baked a couple loaves of Hamelman's Oatmeal Bread with Cinnamon and Raisins. It was my third bake of this recipe. The only modification I made was, while I had used AP flour before, this time I used King Arthur Baking "Bread Flour." The higher-gluten flour was naturally a bit thirstier, and it ended up with a more open crumb. It was a bit chewier, but the flavor was unchanged.

Today's bake is loosely based on Ken Forkish's "Overnight Country Brown." I increased the levain and did the "overnight" in the fridge after dividing and shaping rather than in bulk at room temperature. Well, the hydration is higher too - 85.5 versus 78%. The result is a moderately sour, crusty loaf with a fairly open, deliciously moist and tender crumb. The flavor is more straight ahead wheaty than my favorite multigrain sourdough, but this is also a spectacularly delicious bread. I had some almost cooled with a light smear of butter, along with a bowl of split pea soup for lunch.