Isand66's blog

 It finally feels like summer here on Long Island, so that means it's time to fire up the Barbecue and throw on some hamburgers and hot dogs.  I whipped up a version of a yeasted bun I've made many times and changed it over to use a SD starter and made a few other flour swaps as well.

These ended up great and were nice and tasty and soft but not too soft to hold up to a grilled burger and hot dog.

This is another version of bread I baked last fall.  I changed up the flour combination and used a Durum starter as well.

I was very happy with the moist crumb and the combination of flours made for a perfect rye sandwich bread.  The crumb was perfect for this style of bread and I would certainly bake this one again.

Formula

 If you love onions this one is for you.  I had some leftover caramelized onions that my wife had cooked up so I decided to incorporate them into my next bread.  I thought adding some maple syrup would give this a nice overall sweetness and some Greek yogurt was added to soften the crumb.

I used a combination of medium rye, fresh whole wheat and French style flour from KAF.

I have not had time to post anything lately but finally this 3 day Memorial weekend has give me the chance to post.

Yesterday I made some smoked Baby Back ribs to bring to our friends Memorial Day party and I wanted to bring some nice rolls to go with them.  I have not made a Tangzhong style dough in a while and really wanted to make a dough that was nice and soft without adding butter or cheese.

I decided I also wanted the nice nutty flavor of Buckwheat which I thought would go well with Durum flour and some nice mashed red skinned potatoes.

  It's nice to be home after a two week business trip to Asia.  I'm always happy to bake some fresh bread after eating pretty crappy bread most of my trip.

I used some Buckwheat flour I had recently purchased from KAF and combined it with some freshly milled hard red whole wheat along with some French style flour and potato flour.  Barley flakes were added for some additional flavor.

This was one of those, what was I thinking breads.  I had read about a porridge bread someone else posted about where they soaked the cracked rye overnight in water, and for some reason that translated to me as let's soak whole durum berries in water overnight and make a porridge from them.  I should have known that I didn't do something right when the porridge was taking forever to solidify and didn't absorb all of the water as usual.  Next time I need to either crack the durum berries first or soak them overnight in hot boiling water.  The berries were soft when added

      Usually with this list of ingredients I would either make a soaker or a porridge but instead I decided to add some crunch to the bread.  I used a combination of rolled oats, barley flakes, and cracked wheat and simply added them into the flour mixture of French style KAF, fresh milled whole wheat and fresh milled whole rye.  I added some dehydrated toasted onions for a little extra flavor as well.

I also coated the outside of the dough with malted wheat for an extra level of crunch.

    I was in the mood for a nice soft flavorful bread, so since I had some fresh milled Kamut flour ready to go, I mixed it with a good amount ricotta cheese, olive oil and some Artisan style flour from KAF.  The end result was a dough that was soft as silk and ended up with a wonderful soft and flavorful crumb, perfect for sandwiches, toast and grilled bread.

  I've made a similar bread before and loved the way the dates add a natural sweetness to the bread.  This time I decided to add some more natural sweetness with some caramelized onions.

I made one large miche style loaf but you can easily make 2 loaves out of this formula.

The final bread as before came out great with a moderately open crumb and a nice dark chewy crust.  The dates really add such a unique pleasant flavor to the overall bread and that combined with the sweetness of the caramelized onions really make this a bread worth trying.

I just received my order from KAF the other day and wanted to use the barley flour I had ordered.  I love the nutty flavor barley flour provides so why not up the nutty flavor a few notches and add some walnuts and pecans?

I used some French style flour from KAF as well as the barley flour for main dough and used some sprouted rye flour I milled myself, along with more French style flour for the starter.