Isand66's blog

I love using this 36 hour method to make bread.  It takes a little planning but once you figure that part out it's pretty easy.  I have yet to have a bad result from this method unless you count the baguettes that got stuck to my peel and fell into my oven, but we won't go there!

I actually baked this bread on Monday but since this week has been a blur due to me starting a new job on Monday and adopting a new apprentice on Sunday I've had my hands full!

I've made similar breads before, but this is the first time I used a Durum/Kamut starter as well so almost all of the flour in the final  product was a combination of both flours.  I also am loving the freshly milled Kamut in my recent bakes.  If I can find a reasonable price for Durum Wheat I would love to try that as well, but the shipping is prohibitive.  If anybody has a good source please let me know.

 I've made German Pretzel Rolls many times now and they are always a hit at parties and just one of the best types of breads to make.  I usually make the original version using yeast and bread flour but I've made them with some dark rye and sourdough starter before as well.

This time I wanted to push the envelope a bit and used beer instead of water and added some caramelized onions to really kick it up a notch.

To get that authentic pretzel color and crust you must use Lye but if you really are afraid you can use baking soda.

I love the rich nutty flavor beer adds to a sourdough especially when there is a good hearty mix of whole grain flours and add-ins.

I've been making a lot of whole grain breads lately but I really felt the need for something completely opposite and not quite as healthy.  We were going to have some chicken burgers for dinner one night last week and they wouldn't have really worked on slices of 100% whole grain bread so some Challah rolls were needed.

This formula is based on one of Peter Reinhart's with a few modifications and ended up making some great rolls.

Formula

  Ever since I received my new toy I've become obsessed with using freshly milled flour in my bread baking.  Since I was traveling last week for a job interview I didn't have any time to bake until this weekend so I refreshed my mother starter, created a levain using some of the refreshed starter and just to see what would happen, I added some sour cream in place of some of the water to make the levain.

One of my favorite ryes is the one from Inside the Jewish Bakery by Norm and Stan.  I have not made it for a while but I figured it was time to try it again since I've been getting a lot of questions about it on my other blog site.

 Last weekend I converted part of my AP starter to a Rye starter building it up over 3 builds and ending up with a 100% Rye starter.  Since I also refreshed my AP starter I decided to make a new bread utilizing the rye starter which was built using freshly milled rye flour as well as my AP starter.  I used a much higher percentage of rye starter for this bread and also included some freshly milled spelt, Hard Red Winter Wheat and Hard White Wheat along with some additional rye.

My wife requested some of these tasty rolls  at the last-minute for our belated holiday family dinner this past weekend.  She wanted something to go along with her eggplant parmesan and lasagna and these really went well.

Since I didn't have a lot of time to make these with yeast water or sourdough starter I used some instant yeast but to try to build some extra flavor I retarded the dough overnight in the refrigerator.

My wife requested an Italian style bread to go with her lasagna for this weekends belated holiday dinner with my family.  I couldn't just make a simple Italian bread of course, so I made a new version of an older formula I posted about early last year.  This is loosely based on Peter Reinhart's Italian bread from BBA where he uses a biga which I replaced with a durum based starter.  I also used some freshly milled white hard wheat, freshly milled spelt and rye flours along with KAF French style and Durum.