MadAboutB8's blog

I made this same bread before some months ago combining Jeffrey Hamelman’s method and Bourke Street Bakery recipe (not entirely). This time I followed Bourke Street Bakery’s recipe closely. Umm, closely, I actually increased the amount of both soy beans and linseeds substantially (double the amount for both soys and linseeds), upped the amount of water a little (hydration percentage) and replaced 10% of bread flour with whole wheat flour.

I’ve been wanted to try making sourdough pancake for quite sometimes. It was regularly suggested by sourdough bakers as a good way to use the starter discard from the feedings. 

I make pancake rather often. And I was curious to find out how well sourdough starter would leaven the pancake batter and the taste it would give.

One of the most loved pastry items with multiple identities, Pain au Raisin. Though it is widely known as Pain au Raisins (or Pain aux Raisins), it is also called escagot and snail. Many Aussies know this item as snails due to its shape.

It has everything that ticks, slightly spiced juicy sultana (golden raisin), pastry cream wrapped in buttery and flaky croissant dough. Some are also glazed with apricot jam, and finished off with icing sugar.

I still had some leftover home-grown apples (not from our home, unfortunately). These apples were delicious, juicy and slightly tart. I wasn’t exactly sure what kind of apples they were. My guess would be ‘Golden Delicious’ because of its golden colour and sweet yet tart flavour.

Continuing on my croissant project, to practice making croissants, this week I turned them into almond croissants.

 "my fifth time making croissants, getting more comfortable with them, but still more practices to do:)"

Almond croissant is my most favorite pastry item. It is buttery, crisp, moist, sweet and nutty, what is not to love in this little pasty of indulgence?

I was amazed how wheat germs enhanced bread flavor when I made David (dmsnyder)'s famous SFBI miche a couple of months ago. I liked it a lot that I wanted to try making more breads with wheat germs.

Well, I can be easily distracted with other baking projects, bread ideas, new books, etc. Now, two months later, I finally got the chance to make a plain sourdough with toasted wheat germs added. 

Now that I finally found (the elusive) durum flour (after been making semolina bread with fine semolina all along), I wanted to find out what differences between fine semolina and durum flour would produce in a finished product. I wanted to try this with the bread that I made using fine semolina before, Semolina Bread from Jeffrey Hamelman’s Bread cookbook.

This might not be the traditional Hot Cross Bun but my Easter won’t feel like one without Chocolate Hot Cross Buns.

I based the recipe largely on the traditional Hot Cross bun I made last week. I included sourdough starter in the recipe for extra flavour. The starter didn’t help much with the rising, if at all. I also couldn’t taste any acidity from the starter.

I'm still having some home-grown apples that I wanted to use and I was thinking about apple bread. Originally, I thought about making apple and oats bread from Bourke Street Bakery cook book. However, I bought quite a few new bread-making books that I should use. So turning to Dan Lepard's books, I saw a promising apple bread recipe.