Isand66's blog

12Apr

Who doesn’t like cheddar cheese and cherries? Make it smoked cheddar and add egg yolks and 80% fresh milled flour, and I’m in heaven.

I used one of my favorite grains from Barton Spring Mills called Butlers Gold which is a hard red winter wheat, and mixed it with some fresh milled spelt. The whole wheat was milled and sifted with a #30 drum sieve and remilled and sifted with a #40. The spelt was only sifted with a #30 and milled twice.

Made with fresh milled flour except for some KAF bread flour in the levain. Mixed in my Ankarsrum and open baked with steam.

I added quite a large amount of purple potatoes, which, along with some Greek Yogurt, brought the overall hydration to around 110%. I’m surprised that the potatoes had zero purple coloring. I guess sweet potatoes work better in that regard.

The crumb is moist and open, and the flavor is fantastic. Next time, I would hold back some water to make the dough a little bit more manageable, but overall this one’s a keeper.

29Mar

If you don’t like onions, this one’s not for you!

I made caramelized onions in my slow cooker and used the water left over from the crying onions as part of the dough liquid. I used fresh milled spelt and Marquis whole wheat.

I definitely went overboard with the hydration on this bake, and I also let the bulk go too far. Spelt doesn’t do well if overhydrated, and it made shaping a little difficult.

29Mar

I love buying the Harvest Grain mix from Trader Joe’s. It makes an excellent side dish and is flavorful and healthy. It contains Israeli couscous, orzo, baby garbanzo beans, and red quinoa, which I cook in chicken stock and little oil. I have wanted to incorporate the cooked grains in bread for a while, so here you go!

22Mar

One of my favorite ways of making healthy potatoes is to partially boil them in salted water and then toss them in olive oil with some spices. Then, I place them on my pellet smoker until they are nice and crisp with a slightly smokey flavor. They are good enough to eat by themselves. I decided to prepare some purple sweet potatoes in this fashion and had enough left over to use in this bread.

This is my entry into the Freshloaf.com Community Bake Flatbread challenge. About a year ago another baker on TFL, Tom Passin (Tpassin) posted a yeasted version of this unique style of flatbread here. He goes over some of the history of the bread and has some cool links with videos. There are many ways to make this one with different styles.

Whole Wheat Rye with Corn Flour SD

1Mar

It’s time for a hot pastrami sandwich, so I made rye bread with fresh milled whole wheat, rye, and corn flour. I added some molasses for sweetness and some sour cream for extra tang.

23Feb

I love adding cheese to my bakes. Usually, I cut the cheese in small pieces or chunks and fold them in, but I decided I wanted to use shredded cheese and added some to the starter. I used Parmesan and smoked cherry cheddar cheese. The combination really imparted a noticeable cheese flavor and when the bread is toasted or grilled it smells amazing.

I made a version of this several months ago. This time, I added dried raspberries and used Butler’s Gold whole wheat from Barton Springs Mill.

The durum and the whole wheat were milled in my MockMill 200 and sifted with a #30 drum sieve, re-milled, and then sifted with a #40 drum sieve.

The Butler’s Gold WW is an organic modern Red Winter Wheat with a neutral classic wheat flavor and is considered a relatively high-strength flour. The protein content is 15.5%.

For the first bake of 2025, I figured I would try something new. I’ve never combined a Tangzhong with a Scald. I used fresh milled green corn flour for the scald, which had boiling water poured over it and stirred until combined.

The final mix was done in my Ankarsum and open-baked with steam.

This was a very high-hydration dough, and with all the fresh milled flour, it ended up over proofing. I should have baked it the next morning, but I had to go to work, so 18 hours ended up being too long. The dough didn’t hold its shape and had very little rise.