GSnyde's blog

Cat and I decided to go for a hike yesterday on Mount Sutro, the wooded mountain in the middle of San Francisco.  Since we knew we’d be in for some calorie-burning, we stopped on the way at our neighborhood pizzeria, Pizzetta 211, a tiny place that is often rated as the best in the City.  Cat had a bacon and butternut squash pie with chipotle crème fraiche.  I had one with homemade sausage, radicchio and Gruyere.  Sorry, I didn't have my camera along.

Though my favorite bread to eat alone or with a dab of butter or cheese is French-style sourdough, there is nothing better than a good Jewish deli-style brunch, featuring bagels and rye bread.

I have said before that gluttony is among my favorites of the deadly sins; the craving for fat, salt and sugar is a delightful vice.  Favoring gluttony, though, runs contrary to my part time dedication to rationality; good sense indicates that gluttony can be detrimental.  This dissonance—which regularly afflicts bakers—is my topic today.

Today I baked two things from Inside the Jewish Bakery: one worked out very well, and one didn’t.  The double knot rolls with Honey-Whole Wheat Challah dough are just as I hoped.  The Mini-Schnecken came out all wrong.

Not much novel in my baking life lately.  

Last weekend I tried bagels using 50% Type 85 flour and 50% High-gluten white flour (Sir Lancelot).  The results were ok, but not as good as my previous formula (75% High-gluten flour and 25% bread flour).  These were too extensible (could have lowered the hydration with the lower gluten flour blend) and the ends didn't want to cohere.  The flavor was nice, but I think I'll stick with the proven recipe.

I received my copy of Inside the Jewish Bakery a few days ago, and fairly quickly settled on the Bear Claws as the first recipe I wanted to try.  I’m kind of an almond paste freak .  You could call me a “MarziFan”.  

I’ve been experimenting with bagels and pastries and I haven’t made sourdough in San Francisco for over a month, and I’d forgotten to feed my starter.  Then, we replaced our refrigerator and some things were unrefrigerated for a spell one day last week, including my starter.

I tried two very different doughs in my new Bosch Universal Plus this weekend.  The machine performed very well, and the breads were all good.

 Since my Danish pastry adventure last week, I’ve been keeping it simple.  Last Sunday I baked some of my San Francisco Country Sourdough (8.5% whole wheat, 6% whole rye, 40% liquid levain, 75% hydration).  I’ve reported variations on this formula before, for instance here (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/22679/spring-air…and-oven).  Last week I used bread flour in the levain instead of all purpose, to get a bit chewier crumb.