Postal Grunt's blog

I've finally caught up with writing these recipes and posting them on my blog. The format and style of writing is still a work in progress but I hope that they will be of value to other bakers. There are no claims of authenticity, only an admission of shameless lifting from other formula or recipes posted here on TFL or on the internet.

http://chaosamongstthefloursandflowers.blogspot.com/2011/08/sourdough-anadama-bread-recipe.html

The competition at this year's Leavenworth County Fair bread division was sparse. As I posted a few days ago, I entered a sourdough and a horiatiko psomi loaf. Because place ribbons aren't handed out for the entrants' self-esteem, I'm pleased that both of my loaves won blue ribbons.

Sourdough

Horiatiko Psomi

I spent some time in the kitchen this weekend. I was baking bread and establishing a separate starter that wouldn't see the inside of the refrigerator until the last loaves were done. There was also a fair amount of cleanup after the flour flew. The first loaf was out of the oven on Friday morning was another attempt at an Anadama Bread that turned out well, just not too open in the crumb.

After seeing Glenn's posting of his weekend bake, I thought that I'd show a couple of pictures of my project. It's what I often call my "house loaf" lately though this particular loaf appears to look better than most I've turned out. Maybe it was good fortune but I like to think that I keep learning from all the information being shared here on TFL.

There's an awkward name for a bread. It's the third of three recipes that I wanted to do this summer using ADY and it worked out well for me.

It's what I consider a fairly simple recipe using elements taken from Mr Hamelman's "Bread" and recipes I've read here on TFL. I also have to give out recognition to Codruta for her idea of using a paper grocery bag during the proof of a loaf. It's a great idea, simple and effective.

Last month, I posted about my work on developing a formula for the Pioneer Bread recipe from the Kansas Wheat Commission.

http://chaosamongstthefloursandflowers.blogspot.com/2011/06/variation-on-pioneer-bread.html

Recently, I decided it was time to go back to trying my hand at some loaves using the ADY that's stored in my downstairs freezer. The first recipe that I'm working on is Pioneer Bread from the Kansas Wheat Commission's web site.

http://www.kswheat.com/recipes.php?id=122

I suspect that I'm not the only one that has had an impulse or two to color out side the lines. This time, I got caught up in reading too much and just had to do something I hadn't found in my books. I had read about using using large preferments that were bigas or poolishs but I had to try a pate fermentee. I wanted some bread to go with the all purpose red sauce I was working on and thought that I could make pizza dough for the next night in the same batch. No problem, right?

I've been trying to improve my whole wheat loaves as a project for this year. The Italian breads I thought I'd master have been put on the shelf while I work with some home milled flour that I purchased from a local farm. My results with the 1-2-3 formula have been good but I wasn't satisfied in that I felt I could do more.