Kistida's blog

This week, I made an olive and cheese loaf, Queen Elizabeth cake (twice), and non-baked breads: steamed flower buns and horseshoe fritters (these are fried). 

For the loaf, I wanted a soft bread that stays soft until the last slice. I used pepper-stuffed olives - these gave specks of red together with the orange bits of old fort and marbled cheddar. I wasn’t sure if my starter was strong enough for this bake since I used it passed its peak.

I made this carrot swirly bread as one of the things to do with a big bag of carrots. 🤣

Here’s the recipe, just prepare the yudane a few hours ahead of time (some recipes call for it to be chilled overnight). Also it’s easily modified to exclude the sd discard. 

Yudane

• 100g all purpose flour 
• 100g boiling water 

use 100g for white dough, 70g for carrot dough 

I remember clearly when I wrote down the ingredient list that I was to use coconut milk in this bread. But I mixed 2% milk instead 🤦🏻‍♀️ Still it came out as a fragrant tasty bread! I braided the 5-strand loaf too tightly too. 

Has anyone baked the little dough used for gauging fermentation? 🤣 This is my baby dough (sitting on a teaspoon) from today’s sourdough cheese-stuffed fougasse (adapted from Maurizio’s) - this lil one took 18 minutes to bake. 

There were also baked potato skins with butter chicken filling and ..

I enjoy same day bakes but I think impatience got me on this chocolate+espresso + butter toasted oats swirl loaf (adapted recipe from bake-street.com) Guess I was just eager to see how the swirls turn out. ;) Still the entire process was rewarding, especially the smells from baking this (the extra espresso powder, butter toasted oats, yum)

Usually my sourdough discard ends up in Dutch baby pancakes or flat breads but this week I used the discard (just over 200g) in a Garlic Herb & Cheese Pull-apart loaf and remade my orange cake with dark chocolate.

I'm not a fan of very tangy/acidic sourdough bread, that's why I normally don't proof my loaf for extended periods in the fridge. The only time an overnight loaf didn't taste very sour was when I used a stiff starter and there were cinnamon sugar and raisins in the loaf.

I simply added ingredients to make a small single layer orange cake for dessert today. The 6” pan is preferred because it provides enough cake for 2 human beings without guilt of over-stuffing our bellies or having to cope with leftover dessert. :D 

Cake

My starters were fed more than usual the amounts of ‘food’ just before my husband and I left for a family emergency in eastern Quebec. This morning I mixed both liquid and stiff discards to make 100% hydration, then recalculated the recipe for a cinnamon raisin swirl loaf recipe from KAB. I’ll probably attempt this again (the hubby loves cinnamon raisin anything!) with ripe sd and some spelt flour.

Dough (all at room temp)