HeiHei29er's blog

Inspiration for this loaf came this fall while canning up some of the many cucumbers we grew this year.  Garlic dill pickles are something I really enjoy and felt that combination had potential as a bread as well.  Happy to say that it turned out quite well.  A friend tried it this morning as buttered toast for breakfast and then again as avocado toast for lunch.  He's tried many of my breads and said he thought that this was one of my best.  I'll run with that for now...  :-)

I originally tried this bread with the 90% biga version.  I struggled with lumpy dough like others did and couldn't get them all out.  Even with the lumps, my sister-in-law really liked the bread, and she asked for it again this week.

Let's get the obvious out of the way...  My first attempt at decorative scoring is, well, let's say rudimentary at best.  Still a lot to learn on that!  :-)

I've only made this a couple times.  It's a Finnish bread and a favorite in the local bakeries.  It makes great French Toast!  Traditionally, it's a 3-strand braid, but this is my second attempt making it with a 5-strand.

Makes two braids...

Levain
114g    AP Flour
74g     Water
0.5g    Active Dry Yeast
1)  Dissolve yeast in water.  Combine all ingredients and ferment at 70 deg F for 12-14 hours.

I love Autumn in the UP...  Not only the colors that start popping on the maples, but Autumn means the tomatoes and peppers are ready to harvest!

Jalapenos

Fresno Chilis

It was a busy weekend and a busy weekend of baking!  Catching up on a few posts...

Have been trying a few recipes and techniques of other TFL'ers in my last couple bakes, and this weekend I tried trailrunner's holy trinity of equal parts honey, EVOO, and yogurt in place of some of the water.  I chose to try it on one of the whole grain recipes I've been wanting to bake again:  60 rye:40 spelt with toasted pumpkin seeds and flaxseed.

I've been on a bit of a whole grain kick lately, and after a brief back and forth with Dave, I decided to give his 97th Bake a try.  Let the fun begin!

Wanted to try making a mostly lean but soft sandwich loaf for my wife to try.  Did a slight variation on my semolina bread hearth loaf.  Subbed a little more AP in and added 5% WW.  Also increased the EVOO just a bit.  

Sliced about a third of the loaf after 3 hours of cooling and was really happy with it.  Wonderful aroma and very soft.  Will see how it ages over the next few days.

Benny's milk bread and trying to make hamburger buns are two bakes that have been on my list for quite a while.  I've also been wanting to do another round of my Honey Ginger and Jasmine Rice bread.  This weekend I tackled all three at once and used this bake as the basis, but I went with Active Dry Yeast (ADY) instead of sourdough.

Makes twelve buns big enough to easily handle a 1/2 pound hamburger patty (as a size estimate)...

Today's bake is another using my sour raisin yeast water as the predominant leavening.  I also added in a bit of starter at the final mix because the RYW poolish seemed a little sluggish.  This was also an overnight cold retard during bulk.  I've made this once before at 30% whole grain, so I bumped it up to 40% for today.  I think I could go up to 50% and get similar results, but not using the cold retard (or I would have to go into cold retard sooner).  The dough looked good after the cold retard and during shaping, but it was starting to lose steam and dough stre