GSnyde's blog

We had guests this weekend, and they’re bread lovers.  So the bread sort of became the centerpiece of the weekend.

Back from vacation, I needed to bake some sourdough.  Tartine’s Basic Country Bread has become my favorite.   Its crumb is my ideal texture for a hearth bread--just the right amount of chew, and airy and moist.  But, as I’ve noted before, large loaves just aren’t practical for our everyday use.   Last time I baked a batch, it was one large loaf and two small ones.  This time I made four half-kilo loaves, two batards and two boules.

We’re back from our trip to the Kona Coast on the Big Island of Hawai’i.   Since we spent a lot of time in the ocean, and another large part out enjoying the sights and flavors of the islands, there were not a lot of occasions for baking.   Plus, though our friends’ house where we stayed has a well-equipped kitchen, it isn’t well equipped for baking.

Having just begun what could be a long adventure with rye breads, I may not be an expert yet.  But I've developed a formula that replicates the texture of 40% rye dough.

800 g warm water

750 g rye sour

150 g quick set cement

50 g Epoxy

1/2 cup Altus (optional)

1 Tbsp Caraway seeds (optional)

Once you mix the ingredients (I recommend a mason's trowel) and scrape as much as you can off the spatulas, your hands, the bowl and the work surface, you have enough for a small dinner roll.

Glenn

More experiments today.  I baked a Jewish-style rye bread for the first time and I riffed on Tartine’s Basic Country Bread.

The Rye and Wherefore

Brother David and his wife Susan are traveling back to Fresno after a weekend in the Bay Area to see our visiting brother Aaron from Colorado.  So with the two locals, we had 80% of the Snyder siblings in one place.  That place, of course, was well-provisioned with baked goods, and we had a very nice brunch at Sister Norma’s apartment in Oakland. 

But, first, the weather.  Thunder, lightening and hail may not be a big deal to people in  some localities.  But in Northern California, they are rare as reliable weather-forecasting.  Saturday, our morning coffee was interrupted by a crashing downpour of (admittedly small) hail.  It went on for many minutes and accented our garden with glistening ice.

Mixed Flowers and Mixed Flours

A drizzly weekend seemed like a good time to fill the house with the aroma of spices.   It started out with the need to replenish our supply of Cinnamon-Raisin-Walnut Bread, my Number One Bread Fan’s favorite.  Then, I wanted to bake something really special to take to our friends’ new house for a pre-dinner snack and cocktail.   I settled on making a second attempt at the Cheese-Curry-Onion Bread from The Cheese Board Collective’s cookbook.

Cinnamon