Shiao-Ping's blog

I confess this came as an accident.   When I was scanning Michel Suas' Advanced Bread & Pastry, his [b]Caramelized Hazelnut Squares[/b] (page 248) caught my attention.   I sometimes make for my kids Hazelnut Praline Semi-Freddo; nothing pleases my boy more than that Italian ice cream.   Suas' formula to me is like incorporating a secrete ingredient in a delicious ice cream into a bread.  I was however not sure about having to prepare 2 sponge preferments plus 2 levains just to make this "Squares."  

This is not the easiest sourdough starter to culture.  It took many days for the Golden Semolina starter to be ready and even then it did not look very robust.  It would not surprised me if this type of flour is extremely low in sugar content.   I was going to abandon the starter or even add instant yeast to the final dough, but I thought if it didn't work out, no harm - it's an experiment.   

I needed to revive my grape starter (I dried it using [url=http://www.wildyeastblog.com/?s=drying+a+starter/]the method here[/url]) to make sure that it is still alive and happy.  And indeed it is.  I dried it a month and a half ago because it was getting too strong and active and I couldn't keep up with it.  It took me 4 days to bring it back from its sleep and on the 5th day (yesterday) I mixed up a batch of dough.

[u][b]My formula for the dough[/b][/u]:  

220 g organic stonegournd wholemeal starter @75% hydration 

400 g organic stoneground wholemeal flour (protein 14%+)

25 g water

270 g fat free butter milk

9 g salt   

(final dough weight 924 g and dough hydration 74% ) 

[b][u]My formula[/u][/b]  

190 g rye starter @100% hydration

95 g Rye meal unbleached flour

95 g organic stoneground whole meal flour

95 g KAF Sir Lancelot flour

50 g water

204 g orange juice

7 g salt Quinoa for dusting  

final dough weight 640 g    dough hydration 67%  

This sourdough was inspired by [url=http://www.farine-mc.com/2009/06/double-apple-bread.html][color=red]MC's fantastic Double Apple Bread[/color][/url] at [url=http://www.farine-mc.com/][color=red]her farine-mc site[/color][/url].  My family is big on apples and when I saw her post I knew I would have to try.    

This recipe is from page 130 of Eric Kayser's [b]Beyond The Bread Basket[/b].  It is part of a dessert called [b]Strawberries in Wine with Pink Caramelized Almond Bread[/b].  As winter is now in full swing down under, strawberries are everywhere in fruit & vege stores and supermarkets; I thought it would make a relatively healthy dessert for after dinner.  

[u]Formula for Pink Caramelized Almond Bread[/u] 

250g bread flour

a pinch of salt

Colors excite me.  Often I buy a book because the cover page takes my fancy.   Eric Kayser's "Rund Ums Brot" is one such book.  When I bought it, I knew it was not in English; but all I want was to look at the pictures.   There is an expression in Chinese, your eyes want to eat ice cream too, very crude (or, in English, feast for the eyes?).   It was when I saw this page (below) that I went to google translator for help:

I saw a picture in "20 Meilleurs Ouvriers de France, L'equipe de France De Boulangerie", page 169. 

Many years ago I was in Hang-chow, China, 200 km south west of Shanghai, visiting their Tea Museum.  The museum is set in the beautiful West Lake where historically poets and artists gathered.  I bought a cookbook incorporating tea in dishes at the museum.  I thought at the time the idea was really clever, and why not, Oolong tea (a type of green tea) is so good for us.  Other than that, there's not much to speak of about the book, which is in its typical Chinese crude way of presenting cuisine.