pmccool's blog

It's been a pretty good day in the kitchen

Profile picture for user pmccool

 

The lead photo is Auvergne Dark Rye from Leader's Local Breads.  While I won’t know until tomorrow how it looks inside, I really like the way the crust turned out.  I expect it will be worlds better than my disastrous first attempt with this bread a few years ago.  

FWSY 75% Whole Wheat

Profile picture for user pmccool

Mr. Forkish designed this formula as a hybrid, using a levain and baker's yeast for leavening.  I elected to use only the levain because it was one of two things that I wanted to test with this bake. 

Some context is probably in order. 

Holla for Challah!

Profile picture for user pmccool

A whole wheat four strand braided Challah from today's class.  The flour is a 50/50 mix of white whole wheat and AP.

Paul 

Barley/Wheat Experiment

Profile picture for user pmccool

One of my Christmas gifts this year was several pounds of barley and of oats to feed my home milling habit.  After noodling around here on TFL and the web, I cobbled together a formula to use some barley flour.  

Ingredients 

400g whole wheat flour, freshly milled

400g whole barley flour, freshly milled

400g all purpose flour 

5g malted grain (I used malted barley)

900g water

60g honey

24g salt

10g active dry yeast

Process

Fun in the kitchen this weekend

Profile picture for user pmccool

Our oven has been rather busy lately, especially with the Christmas cookies that my wife likes to make at this time of year.  In spite of all of that going on, I still managed to work in three different breads yesterday.  

First up was the Tyrolean Christmas Zelten from The Rye Baker:

Signs of life

Profile picture for user pmccool

Ian asked that I post something from my bakes (it has been ages).  So, here's today’s bread, a simple pain de compagne.  It's yeasted, rather than sourdough and will form the base for some DIY grilled cheese sandwiches for tomorrow's class.  The other bread the students will make is pain a la ancienne.

New toy

Profile picture for user pmccool

 My running debate with myself over whether to buy a mill or do without came to an abrupt end the week before last when I saw a post about a KoMo Fidibus Classic for sale at an attractive price.  The new-to-me mill arrived early last week but I wasn’t able to play with it until I purchased some wheat this weekend.  

Challot!

Profile picture for user pmccool

Beth Hensperger's Sweet Vanilla Challah, to be precise.  These will be appreciation gifts. 

Paul