Sourdough Italian Rolls
April 18, 2015
Those familiar with my San Joaquin Sourdough will recognize the rolls I baked today as its Italian cousin. Besides the obvious difference that these are rolls rather than bâtards, they also have around 20% Durum flour, some sugar and olive oil, and they have a sesame seed coating.
Pan de Horiadaki
(Greek Country Bread)
based on a formula in Maggie Glazer's A Blessing of Bread
Maggie Glazer wrote that she got the recipe for this bread from Rica Sabetai, a woman fromThessaloniki who escaped the murder of the vast majority of its Jewish community by the Nazis and emigrated to the United States.
This particular version of my San Francisco-style Sourdough, with 30% whole wheat, has become our favorite. I will confess that the version with mostly white flour does get made (and enjoyed), but we are enjoyed breads with increased whole grains more often, in recent years. The basic formula and procedures for the bread I made today can be found here: San Francisco-style Sourdough Bread with increased whole wheat flour
The Sourdough Seed Bread was one of the first formulas I baked after buying Hamelman's Bread, and I thought it was one of the best tasting breads I had every had. I believe it's been more than two years since I have baked it, and I wondered why I hadn't made it more often after tasting a slice last night. It is really good.
My Sourdough Starter Routine: FAQ
December 30, 2014
I get questions about how I manage my sourdough starter frequently enough that I decided to put the information in a single blog entry to which I can refer in the future. What follows applies to a sourdough starter/levain containing mostly white wheat flour. Mostly rye and mostly whole wheat starters are different beasts.
We were invited to some friends annual Boxing Day party. It's always fun. It's a pot luck with wonderful food. There is always live music. This year it was a Celtic string band. I get to visit with friends that, since I retired, I seem to see only once a year, at this party.
I was asked explicitly to bring bread. I brought a large loaf last year, and they never served it. Oh, well. This year, my wife made a delicious shrimp dip, and I baked SJSD demi-baguettes to slice for the dip. I also made a couple small miches using the original SFBI formula.
My wife and I have always enjoyed whole wheat bread. For many years, our favorite one has been Peter Reinhart's "100% Whole Wheat Bread" from BBA. Although a lot of my breads have 10 to 30% whole grain flour, I've really been thinking I need to be baking higher percentage whole grain breads, both for health reasons and because that's the way our taste is trending. So, I've been thinking about making Reinhart's WW bread for weeks.
