sam's blog

Hello,

It shouldn't matter much, but in case any of my old bread baker friends was wondering, a few months ago Floyd agreed to change my online name to Sam (my name), instead of 'gvz', which was a reference to the pink floyd track of the grand vizier's garden party in ummagumma.    Anyway, I wanted to be me instead of some alias.   So I am Sam.  Nice to meet you.   Maybe some day I will put my picture on here.

Hello,

I decided to try making onion rolls, and of course the first thing I usually do when trying something new, is search TFL.   This isn't an exact replica but there are several wonderful onion roll recipes and ideas here http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/normsonionrolls

Hello,

Miracles happen.  Regardless of differences of beliefs and/or religions in the world --  please remember to give a hug to the ones you love, and always love your brothers and sisters.   Every day.

And make good bread.

-gvz

Hello,

This time I decided to try out 100% whole wheat rolls, and added more butter + honey + milk than my previous white rolls.  The home-milled whole-wheat is pretty thirsty, so I increased hydration.  I estimated this around 78% hydration.  The dough was a little bit sticky, but easily manageable.   Overall, I am happy with the outcome, these are quite tasty w.w. sweet rolls.   :-)

Yields about 1200 grams of dough.

Milk poolish:

222g ww flour

308g milk

0.4g instant yeast

Final:

All Poolish

Hello,

Here was some rolls I made today.   I started with a poolish because I did not want any sour at all, and dumped a bunch of real sugar, honey, butter and milk into it.    Came out great, and these are very tasty.

The recipe I did:

Poolish:

140 grams whole-grain flour mix (I did a mixture of WW + rye)
167 grams white bread flour
338 grams whole milk
0.6 grams instant yeast

Final Dough:

Hello,

This was my first attempt working with flax seeds.  I got a bag of brown whole flax seeds from the grocery store, soaked them at 300% hydration for 12 hrs.   Separately, I made a 3lb / 1362g dough at 68% hydration using 90% AP flour, 10% einkorn flour, and a touch of honey (5%).   20% of the flour was a liquid levain at 125% hydration, 50% of the flour was a cold flour soaker at 80% hydration.   For the flax seed soaker, I wasn't sure in advance how many seeds I'd want in the dough, so I just soaked a bunch of seeds, more than I'd need.  

Hello,

Here is another attempt of soft butter honey rolls.  I used the following hydration estimates for the following ingredients:  Butter = 17%, Honey = 75%, Eggs = 75%, Milk = 90%.   My targeted overall dough hydration was 66%, and fortunately the dough was spot on.  Nice and pliable, not sticky at all, but not too stiff/dry either.

Here was the recipe I made w/pics.    All flour was KA bread flour, all weights in grams.

Hello,

Hello,

Here is my most recent attempt/experiment of baguettes.   Even after reading articles, watching youtube videos, I am still pretty horrible at shaping a baguette properly.  :-)  I haven't given up, but after the last 3-4 attempts, I may go back to simpler shapes for a while.

This one is a 33% poolish, 33% sourdough levain, no flour soaker or mash, overall hydration 66%, everything at ambient room temp.   All flour was organic KA AP flour.   The crumb is decently open, and the flavor is good.

Hello,

I've never yet made a poolish bread, and wanted to try it, so here was my first one.  20% of the flour was the poolish w/baker's yeast (0.2%) at 100% hydration (fermented appx 10 hours).  57% of the flour was a cold flour soaker at 80% hydration in parallel while the poolish was fermenting.   Final dough hydration was 66%.   All flour was KA AP flour.   (I did not cold retard the dough, or make a mash for this bread).