JonJ's blog

David Snyder has previously posted a magnificent recipe for a Buttermilk-Spelt sourdough bread (originally by Cecilia Agni Hadiyanto). This is a tweak of David's recipe to accommodate a large preferment, mostly because I've lately been wanting shorter bulk and proof times on my breads. Since my sourdough starter hadn't been fed for a week in the fridge when I did this one, I also added in a yeast water preferment as an insurance that the bread would rise.

It seems to be a fashion here, but it was my turn to try out Benny's version of Eric's rye.

The taste was very mild, even though I used wholemeal rye flour. I think that perhaps my rye sour wasn't sour enough - started with a very sour 50g of rye starter so thought that 4 hours of 27 deg C would be enough to get a rye sour, it sure smelt sour but obviously needed more time to develop a stronger sour taste.

Texture was lovely, very soft and just like I'd expect for a deli loaf.

Just wanted to drop a note about how much I enjoyed both making and eating this bread.

This is a quality recipe. Great posts from David and Hans and lots of techniques and tricks in the comments to their posts meant this was like following a well charted path.

This bread surprised me by it's mildness. Was a pleasure to eat. Even the kids got stuck into it!

As Dan said, "bad babka" is a misnomer, and I also happen to think a "bad blueberry" bread is a misnomer. But I'm biased in liking fruit in my breads, and this particular combination of fresh blueberries and lemon zest in the bread is lovely.

Gosh. Kicking myself that I hadn't tried out parmesan in my breads before. This bread had a great combination of inclusions: 41g of parmesan cheese, grated from a frozen block. Fresh zest of one lemon, about 3 tsp worth. 2 tsp of dried origanum (marjoram). And 45g of Kalamata olives (13 ea). Incredible smell when it was out of the oven. I couldn't wait the two hours for it to cool. Was cutting into it after 40 minutes, sometimes it is the guilty pleasure of hot steamy crusty bread that is the most enjoyable.

Am still loving the yeast water! This was a repeat of Hamelman's "Swiss Farmhouse" from the community bake - used the same formula but with some minor tweaks. Said tweaks being that I used apple yeast water (fed using Granny Smith apples, originally started as a raisin yeast water); and replaced the raisins and walnuts by cranberries and pecans; the cranberries were soaked in boiled water for 20 minutes and so were slightly more hydrated than the raisins usually are.

Our recent babka community bake gave me a hankering for what my grandmother would call 'bulkas/boolkes/bulkes' - yeasted cinnamon buns made with milk.

They are simple, soft and buttery, and not too sweet or as complex as babka. Lovely to eat when spread with butter. We also like to have them as the perfect food for breaking the Yom Kippur fast.

Have been loving the yeast water. 

I've recently made Hamelman's Swiss Farmhouse bread from the community bake. So interesting and it surprised me that my somewhat fizzy water has such great leavening power.