Modern Jess's blog

(Baked 2/3/17)

This ended up being a particularly sticky loaf, and I had considerable trouble getting it out of the banneton when it was time to bake. Hence, the loaf is a bit malformed. Still, it was moist and delicious and had very good crumb.

Ingredients

• 500g King Arthur Bread Flour
• 350g water @ 80°
• 150g starter @ 70% hydration
• 12g salt
• 300g oatmeal porridge (1:1.5 dry to wet by volume)

Process

(Baked 1/30/2017)

Another Oatmeal Porridge loaf, this time with some added whole wheat instead of spelt. 

Ingredients

• 450g King Arthur Bread Flour
• 50g King Arthur Whole Wheat Flour
• 300g water @ 75°
• 150g starter @ 70% hydration
• 12g salt
• 250g oatmeal porridge (1:1.5 dry to wet by volume)

Process

(Baked 1/28/2017)

I do believe this was the first of many many loaves that where I added rolled oats. The way in which I added them continues to change and evolve, but on my first attempt, I actually precooked them.

Soaker

• 1 cup Quaker rolled oats
• 1.5 cups water
• Bring to a boil, reduce to low and cook covered for 15 minutes.
• Remove from heat and let cool while still covered.

Bread Ingredients

My apologies for the extended absence. Again. I've been baking bread, on and off, but I've also been doing lots of other stuff, and posting my progress toward my 2017 Bread Challenge kind of fell by the wayside.

As we now seem to be winding down 2017, I figured I would make an effort to finish what I started. You'll be seeing a bunch more of these blog posts in the next 24 hours. Maybe I'll even finish!

I've made substantial progress on my goal of baking and documenting 50 loaves this year, but I'm way behind on actually posting the results. This loaf was baked way back on January 26th, and I'm only getting around to posting it now. I have quite a backlog, actually -- apologies to anyone who might have been following along.

I've made this loaf many times before, and it's one of my favorites. It's also a bit of a crowd favorite, at least among those who like olives.

After my previous attempt at brioche (where I tragically left out the salt) I thought I'd try again. For this attempt, I just went with a straight loaf shape, and skipped the pseudo-braid I used previously. It's not a very exciting looking loaf, but the flavor was really very good. Pretty happy with the way this one turned out.

As before, I used this recipe from TheKitchn.

I mentioned in an earlier post that my wife was not so enamored with "artisan" bread. For this loaf, I did a complete 180 and baked something that was far, far outside of my wheelhouse. Actually, my wife was specific about it, after I pressed her on why she wouldn't eat my bread for the fourth time that day.

"I want brioche" she said. "Make me brioche and I will eat it."

"How hard could it be?" I said, foolishly, and not for the first time.

One of my coworkers has a serious problem tolerating wheat, though she is not celiac. She agreed to try some experiments (with her as the subject!) to see where the boundaries of her wheat issues lay.

Our first experiment, some time last year, was a very, very long ferment sourdough. That loaf was modestly successful -- her symptoms were relatively mild.

I'm falling behind on posting. Still baking, but I have a backlog of photos and posts to do. Trying to catch up.

Here's a loaf to change things up a bit. My wife is actually not super fond of "artisan" bread. She'll eat it, but she prefers softer bread, and always cuts the crust off regardless of what kind of bread it is. This is, needless to say, a bit of a sore point in our household.