Floydm's blog

Banana Bread, Struan Bread, and Rustic Bread. The banana bread was plain and simple, not even with nuts or chocolate chips.

I baked pitas for lunch today. They were great. I did 1/2 cup of the flour whole wheat, which is 1/6th of the total flour in the recipe. That is just about right for my taste. Making them fit very nicely into my morning schedule: had breakfast, prepared the dough, ran errands while it rose, came home 11:15ish and shaped and baked them. Simple, cheap, and totally rewarding.

I forgot to mention that when I made the Couronne this weekend I found myself without a poolish, something I rarely forget to do. I decided to start one at 8 AM. I used 1 cup whole wheat flour, 1 cup water, and 1/2 teaspoon instant yeast, which is a bit more yeast than I'd do in an overnight pre-ferment.

I tried baking a Couronne this weekend: The bad news: the dough was too slack for me to shape very well, so it didn't turn out terribly pretty. The good news: the slack dough made wonderful bread. Even with a quarter of the flour whole wheat, it was light and airy. We gobbled it up. The recipe was roughly the rustic bread I've baked many times.

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I made Melon bread for the first time today using the recipe posted by minako. We loved them. I followed her directions with only I few adjustments. One adjustment I made was to put no egg in the bread dough and 1 whole egg in the cookie dough. I also didn't happen to have any pastry flour in the house, which I assume is what she meant by "soft flour", so I used all-purpose unbleached flour in both doughs. Here are the doughs when they were ready to shape.

I baked oodles of quick breads today. Pumpkin bread, scones, popovers, and this weird potato-apple pancake from Country Breads of the World, which I recently got from the library. A good book it seems so far. They all turned out well. The pancake kinda fell apart because I didn't use enough flour, but it tasted excellent.

I baked a pumpkin french bread this weekend:

Pumpkin French Bread Makes 2 loaves Poolish: 8 oz. water 8 oz. all-purpose unbleached flour 1/8 teaspoon instant yeast Final dough: All of the poolish 16 oz. all-purpose unbleached flour 4 oz. pumpkin puree 4 oz. water 1 teaspoon instant yeast 1 tablespoon brown sugar

At least I think that is right.

Sunday is my birthday. Sunday is also World Bread Day. Coincidence? I think not. After my excessive baking spree last weekend, I had said I wasn't going to bake this weekend. But I may just have to celebrate World Bread Day by putting together a loaf or two.

"Hello, my name is Floyd, and I am a bread-aholic." I went crazy this weekend. Kaiser rolls, a french bread, oatmeal raisin cookies, pumpkin bread, ciabatta, a raspberry cheese braid, honey wheat bread. Not to mention that I made a batch of apple butter, specifically for eating on home baked bread. Next weekend, I've gotta stop. Maybe one or two batches but that is it. Man, I'm pooped.