I'm back from more than 2 weeks business trip and couldn't wait to start on the Jeffrey Hamelman's challenge. Well, it didn't quite happen. With my failed attempt of the Jeffrey Hamelman's Baguette with Poolish, and failed attempt to make my own malt flour, still looking for high gluten flour for my Jeffrey Hamelman's bagel, well, I adhered to my son's appeal for Olive Bread. He simply loves olives.
I thought I'd share my (not bake), but steamed chinese rice cake here. This is something that is so dear to my heart, as it reminded me of the time that I spent hours helping my mom doing this, every year diligently, for some festivities. Now that I'm away from home, it's just something to remind me of home, family, and I want to pass this little tradition to my little boy, he did help out, and did it well indeed.
I saw Floyd's posting on this recipe. Wanted to try out. I also saw some seeded recipes, and wanted to add in the seeds. I need some advice here, as the the bread turned out a little dense - see the crumb below.
I made these today with a chef. This recipe was meant to go into a bread machine, which of course, the machine is me. I made this all by hand. I tried 2 things today. 1 was to cover the loaf with a claypot to bake, and another stay in the claypot to bake. Of course it turned out that the one that stayed in the claypot got a nicer crust - golden brown.
Every end of the week, I'm so looking forward to my baking. I think it has become an obsession.
Baguette on Friday night, with my old dough from the 5 minutes fresh baked bread. I forgot to add yeast and salt to the dough, but it worked as well, as I had put aside for slow retard rise.
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/painauxraisins
Followed the recipe above from Floyd, I had a lot of fun doing this, especially the shaping of the dough. Somehow the 1st method of shaping caused the middle to rise more than it should, perhaps I shaped it too tightly.
The 2nd with raisins, I think I put too much raisins, all the raisins started to spill out.
For the love of bread, I woke up 5 am, with 4 hours of sleep just to see this bread rise and baked. I didn't regret.
Adapted from Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads, I tried my hand again on this Pain de Campagne Poilane. In addition, I also tried using a claypot to bake this.
