rgreenberg2000's blog

Well, after three test batches, my English Muffins were proclaimed ready for prime time by the taste testers here at my place!

Still working on these.  Getting close, but not quite there yet.  My formula is essentially unchanged from last time, though I did remember the butter this time!  Used my Ankarsrum mixer to get these mixed up, and that was a breeze.  Overnight cold bulk followed by about a 2 hour RT proof after shaping.  I experimented with cooking these in the oven, on a stone, covered @ 350°......that worked fine, except that they got NO color (even with no cover for half the time.)  I ended up firing up the griddle on the stove pretty hot to just quickly get them some color.

I made up a large batch of my Cheddar/Thyme bread Sunday for customers.  I just love this bread!  I find it fun to mix in the inclusions, as it breaks up the monotony of just folding. :)  I had to add an extra baking day this week, as this formula has become quite popular!  My daughter made sure that I baked an extra for us to have, too. :)

Formula (percentages inclusive of flour/water in levain):

Bread Flour (CM ABC+) 60%

AP Flour (Ardent) 30%

CM Red Spring (fresh milled) 5%

CM White Winter (fresh milled) 5%

Looking to expand my repertoire with something less loafy, so thought I'd give English Muffins a go again after THIS ATTEMPT about 12 years ago! :)  I'm much happier with the results on these, which I will humbly chalk up to my gaining a bit of dough handling and reading experience in the intervening years! :)

I have been remiss in not posting sooner about my little (VERY little), home-based pico-bakery, Nickel Cat Bread Company.  I made my first loaf of sourdough bread about 11 1/2 years ago, which was a success in very great part to all of the information I gleaned from this site as I was diving into the hobby.  On June 3rd of this year, I sold my first loaves of bread as a licensed cottage bakery.  I have purposely kept my production very small, providing loaves to friends and neighbors for porch pickup here in Redwood City, CA.  My typical weekly production is 8-10 loaves,

Ok, so I'm not an artist in any way, shape, or form!  Lovely images that I can see in my mind's eye always turn out as stick figures, and not very good ones at that! :)  So, it's a bit surprising, then, that I decided to try some decorative scoring on my weekly loaves this week.  Back story.......we hosted our annual Halloween party on Monday, and one of our guests brought a loaf of bread that had a "Jack Skellington" skeleton face scored on the top of it.  I thought to myself, "Hey, this would be a cool thing for me to make next year to go with my BBQ Skeleton.....

I have posted similar loaves in the past, but there's probably been enough change to the formula, I thought I'd add a new entry.  This bread is what I make every week about 90% of the time (my recent olive and cranberry loaves notwithstanding.) Over the past year or two, I've swapped the amounts for whole wheat vs durum, in favor of a higher % of durum in the mix.  All of the non-white flour is freshly milled in my Komo Fidibus mill.

Oh, and I've confused people in the past with the RWC abbreviation......it's the city I live in (Redwood City.) :)

FORMULA

We have friends coming into town this week, so I needed more bread on hand.  Seemed like a good time to take a run at Holiday Cranberry v2 (now BASED on Trevor Wilson’s formula, but tweaked more to my starter/process.)  Everything went very well with this bake EXCEPT for a hydration issue……. After I got all the water, levain and flours into my Ank, it was dry as dry could be!!

As part of my search for some new formulas to work with (with an eye toward the holidays), I spent some time perusing PiPs blog posts.  If you haven't had the time to look through his content, I have to say, I could spend a month or two just baking some of the absolutely delicious looking breads that he presented here!  Lovely stuff!

I haven't posted anything in ages since I tend to make the same loaves on a regular basis that I have shared before.  I am still baking weekly, and I visit here often to see what creations everyone is baking up!  This week, I decided to shake things up a bit and find some loaves that would be fitting for holiday gatherings and gifts.