Isand66's blog

Last weekend I baked a multi-grain bread using white wine with sweet potatoes which came out as good as I could have expected.  This time I wanted to try using a red wine and what goes better with red wine but chocolate and cheese.  I used a cocoa rouge which is a special type of cocoa that has an intense bittersweet character with a rich deep red color and fudge-like flavor.

Here on Long Island, New York we have a ever-growing wine country on the East End of the Island.  My wife and I like to go visit a few different wineries and enjoy sampling the different varieties of wine available.  There is nothing more relaxing than to sit down with some good wine, cheese and bread and enjoy the cooler autumn air.

Over the last few weeks I have been experimenting with making different styles and recipes for baguettes.  A couple of weeks ago I tried TxFarmer's 36 hour sourdough version but I had some issues transferring the rested baguettes to my oven and the results were less than stellar.&n

I just received my delivery from KAF and I wanted to use some of the new flours and ingredients I purchased.  I decided to make a multi-flour bread using white spelt, whole spelt, rye chops (chopped up rye berries) and some black cocoa.

This is the second bread I made for Rosh Hashana to bring to my Cousin's house for dinner.  The other loaf was hearty multi-grain with Farro and Toasted Lager so I wanted to make something a little lighter for this loaf.  I used some Durum Semolina, Italian Style 00 flour, whole grain Spelt flour and roasted onions and greek yogurt.  I wanted to use the yogurt to try to make the

I decided to make a couple of breads to bring to my cousin's house for Rosh Hashana this weekend and she requested I make my Farro Hard Cider Multi-grain.  I didn't have any hard cider available nor did I have time to make a Farro starter so I used a nice Long Island toasted lager and substituted my stock AP starter which I recently refreshed.

Okay, so every time I go down to my basement I keep passing the bottle of Peppermint Mocha Kahlua staring at me from its perch on our bar.  It's red and white bottle was just yelling at me to try it in a bread or down some with ice, so I decided to do both.

After reading about how much better freshly ground flour is compared to store-bought I finally decided to wiggle a couple of toes in the water and try grinding some of my own.  I used my Krupps coffee grinder to make some Farro flour and also some Hard Red Wheat from grains I had purchased at Whole Foods previously.

Last weekend I baked some of the best rolls I've made to date using instant yeast instead of my usual sourdough or yeast water.  I didn't have time to refresh my starter which is why I had used the instant yeast.  I wanted to try a similar formula using a combo of sourdough starter and yeast water levain.  I decided to leave out the cream and the eggs for this version since I didn't

I just returned from a couple of days vacation visiting Newport Rhode Island.  We had a great time visiting the shops, historic mansions and sailing the harbor.

I wanted to make some rolls/buns that we could use for hamburgers for today's lunch and I didn't have time to refresh my starters so I used some instant yeast for the first time in a long time.