smasty's blog

I'm sure other people have reviewed this, but I'm so pleased with this product I had to create a post.  I cultivated my own sourdough starter about 4 years ago.  I don't know if it's because I'm in suburban Denver (6000 ft) or what, but I could NEVER coax any flavor out of my breads.  2, 3 day retards, maybe a little...definitely nothing like california breads. In fact, I could really not tell the difference between my SD breads and straight breads.  Even poolish were better.

I got a book a few months ago that I'm really in love with.  "Sarabeth's Bakery"...fabulous!  She shares all her secrets as a really good (and commercial) baker.  There are NO shortcuts in this book.  I've been wanting to really do some laminated dough and dove in this week with her babka recipe.  It starts by making a laminated danish dough.  Expect detailed instructions and pics on how to integrate all that butter.  3 folds, a single/double/single.  Then she requires a 24 hour freeze to best distinguish all the layers.  I had some dates getting

I've been in total love with 1-2-3 bread since discovering it on this site.  What could be easier than using discarded starter in a 1-2-3 ratio with water and flour.  (Weigh starter, x 2= water, x3= flour).  I always get fantastic results, great flavor, and no pre-planning.  Here's the original post

1-2-3 Bread

I wanted to make a practice Pandoro for Easter.  It came out GREAT--and was simpler than I expected!  I used the recipe in Maggie Glezer's Artisan Baking.  I followed almost every direction to the letter (except shaping).  I used KAF Lancelot flour (14% protein) and SAF Gold yeast (along w/ SD starter).  I always have cocoa butter on hand, so that wasn't a problem.  I did use salted butter (unsalted is specified), so did not add any additional salt (the recipe uses a lot of butter!)

Growing up as the grandaughter of Ukranian immigrants, this was a staple every time we visited.  As relatives have died off, this isn't made in my family (in its true form) anymore.  I have a sister that makes it in a bread machine every so often, but it isn't the same.  I figured I'd make some practice loaves since Easter is coming up.  This is my first brioche since I started baking about 14 months ago.  The bread came out exactly as I remember from my childhood--a wonderful incredible crumb...yeasty, slightly sweet, delicate, tears in nice strands.  How

I woke up this morning wanting to try making sourdough pancakes with my leftover starter.  I looked up the KAF recipe that people mentioned here, and saw that it used an overnight sponge.  I wanted to whip something out fast and simple, and spontaneous.  So...no sponge for me!  I love the result...light, fluffy (they rose quite a bit), healthy (well, the plate that is pictured is my husband's...mine was healthier).  I had some pumpkin in the freezer that went into the mix.  I don't have exact measurements because I was just tossing stuff in, but here goes:

I made my first foccacia today.  It is from Maggie Glezer's "Artisan Baking" book.  It is fabulous!  It has fresh rosemary and olive oil in the dough that give it wonderful flavor.  They use a technique where the loaf is flipped over after 5 minutes to keep it very flat.  Everything came out just wonderfully.  This recipe uses a poolish with a very small amount of yeast, then 1/4 tsp additional yeast in the dough.  Here's my question--the book recommends a bulk ferment of 6 hours, followed by 3.5 hours of proofing.  Since I'm in Denver, yeasted bulk f

After hanging out here for a few months, I stumbled onto someone talking about the "1-2-3" bread.  I was intrigued!  What a great way to bake every day for pennies, and practice new techniques with, what would have been, throw-away stuff. 

Jason's Coccodrillo Ciabatta just can't be beat!  Especially when you need a loaf and you haven't planned a bake day (i.e.

Oh my, oh my, oh my.  I finally made Shiao Ping's Chocolate Sourdough.  Let me first say, SP--you really need to publish a cookbook.  It would be full of great recipes and fun, witty stories.  I thank you so much for bringing us this recipe.  Words just don't describe how good this is.  "Epic" is a good starting place...kudos to your son.  I made this as written.  All I had in the pantry were milk chocolate chips (large chips, about double the size of the regular bittersweet chips).  The biggest challenge I had was chips popping out of the d