Southbay's blog

1. It’s been a long time since I’ve put anything here. Just to try again, here are some pizzas and desserts I’ve been making. Sourdough purism has given way to practicality and flexibility in the Southbay kitchen and sanitarium. Pizzas and buttery layers are just easy and nice with some quick rise. Kouign-amann really isn’t that hard to make and well worth the effort. And we’ve been making pizzas 6 in a night lately. I had a college job at Gumby’s Pizza in State College, PA some years back, and it’s fun to sort of get the assembly line going.

About a week ago, I made a bread with Carolina Reaper and Fatali peppers that was well received by my heat-loving friends at Roberto's Mexican restaurant in Sunnyvale. It felt like the theme could be explored little further, so I got another few peppers from the garden down the street. My intention was to make a very spicy chili lime sourdough bread with cilantro and a little bit of corn flour mixed in and using my brother's salty spice 'n seasoning mix in place of the salt. Although this turned out good and spicy, voices just kept asking for more cowbel...I mean "more peppers."

My wife went into chocolate crisis the other day and asked me to pick up some Nutella. She said something like wanting me to make a bread "oozing with Nutella." Although I acted on this request and used a good amount of the stuff, I misinterpreted the ask. What she wanted was something more like a giant Nutella-filled sourdough bread doughnut literally oozing with the stuff. What we got instead was delicious and might even become part of the regular rotation around here. 

This spring, things were going nicely. Fatherhood had settled into me, and I was regularly baking breads and cinnamon rolls, with some breads even getting posted on this blog. In June, I fell off my bike, breaking three bones (right elbow, hand, pinky finger) and whacking my head hard enough on the pavement to give me a concussion and require several stitches. Bread baking and starter maintenance abruptly slowed to a minimum. I even walked a friend through the process of making a bread in my kitchen one weekend so we could have some for a BBQ. 

Sometimes I get nerdy with theme breads when trying to come up with new ideas, and yesterday was the final NBA game for the local boys (Warriors). I tried to follow the theme to the end. 

We just got back from travel, so my two starters (San and Fran) came out of the fridge on Saturday evening after 2 weeks of hibernation. They got only one good feeding after warming up, doubled overnight, and were added to this bread Sunday morning. We were in Pennsylvania, which is near Cleveland and just returned to the Bay area like the Warriors.

Just a thanks to all the bakers sharing tips and experience and enjoyable writing. The world is a stressful beautiful horrifying magical place. When I need a break from the bad and some bread inspiration, this has been my digital refuge for a couple of years it seems like. Just visited another popular social site right before bed looking for something lighthearted, but people feel compelled to share the most horrible things there even though they are available on every news website. No such problem here, and TFL (thank the friggin lord).

Something about using some durum flour keeps me coming back, and I tried to improve upon the flavored boule from my last/first blog entry.

We had a Game of Thrones party over the weekend, so I geeked out with a theme bread. Semolinas are fun to work with, and I figured anything yellow/gold in color could be called a Lannister bread of some sort. It was about half semolina flour. This was flavored with nutritional yeast powder, garlic powder, white truffle salt, and some chopped green olives from a jar. I also sprinkled in some smoked paprika during the stretch and folds hoping it would show up as red specks in the finished bread to evoke the crimson color the Lannisters like.