trailrunner's blog

Wowzer....today at church a member brought a huge bag of extra grapes . Hmm...I had a 1/2 batch of semolina pizza dough at home just waiting for something creative to happen. Voila !  This is SO yum !! I can't  even describe how good it is. I used raw sugar and EVOO on top and sprinkled with Herbs de Provence...lots of lavender. Whoa...we have devoured a 1/2 loaf !  Made Conchiglie con Salsiccia e Peperoni as well. Grated parmagiano reggiano ..what a Sunday night feast.

I fed my starter with my whey from kefir. I have been making a lot of kefir cheese lately ..we use it to fill crepes and make Mexican dishes and also lasagna. It is so yum but I have a LOT of whey. The starter was very happy . I then used the whey to replace the water in 3 different formulas. I have never made an olive loaf. I looked around on TFL and found mebake's take on Hammelman's formula in Bread. I used the whey and added extra as did mebake . I also used it in my More Sour Norwich formula.

All I can say is WOW !!  These are fantastic. Thank you Ian for posting and da for continuing the adventure. I too made some changes . I adjusted the formula below to reflect them.

Main Dough Ingredients

200 grams AP flour  Starter at 65% hydration

175 grams AP Flour Starter at 100% hydration

300 grams KAF AP flour

112 grams semolina flour

100 grams rye flour

50 grams kefir cheese and 50 grams sour cream

50 grams Unsalted Butter (cut into pieces and softened)

16 grams Kosher salt

My husband and I grew up in New Orleans. It is a tradition to use up the rich fat foods on this day, the day before Lent begins. Buttermilk pancakes were the order of the morning. We have a vintage griddle from early in our marriage...42 years this past Friday. Husband made his wonderful buttermilk pancakes. I sliced the berries and my best friend had sent me 2 jars of his homemade maple syrup from his trees in Wisconsin. What a great way to start the day and to savor our rich lives. c

The formula you posted for the potato/ricotta bread was a winner !!  I am so glad that my refridgerator contents contained all that I needed . I made a couple changes . I used leftover scalloped potatoes that contained some bits of ham and onions. I mashed them with some milk to what I hoped was a good consistency. You were right about the dough being goopy :)  Whoa...it was. I had already put in all the water , I am used to working with really wet doughs, but I still thought perhaps this was too wet. I added about 1/2 c more flour as it was working in the KA.

I have been making Susan's, Wild Yeast Blog,  100% sourdough bagels for a couple months now...every 2 weeks. They have been perfect every batch. That is not something I can usually say about formulas . I have been stressing my KA and doubling the batch...the motor juuuust manages to do what needs to be done. I give a minute or so by hand on the counter top. The lovely thing about the 100% sourdough is that you needn't do the float test and there is never a worry about the " wrinkled " finish to which many yeast raised bagels succumb.

Alto and sax , my white and rye starters, were outgrowing their containers since I have been feeding and not discarding . I did this on purpose as I need the discard for lots of other goodies. Here is the best yet. I have made this particular banana bread several times but this time I did a couple different things and it paid off.

I have never made this before. I looked up a number of different recipes and then made up my own. I used my old standby of a buttermilk crust. I doubled the crust recipe .  I sauteed 7 sliced Gala apples till tender and added cinnamon and sugar and flour and a pinch of salt. I rolled out the crust and piled on the apples and baked till golden and juicy. I was wonderful with vanilla Blue Bell ice cream. We have it here in the South I don't think everyone can get it ...it is still sold in real half gallons. 

 Single Crust recipe:

We are having an early Thanksgiving due to one of our son's being in town this weekend . He can't get back from San Diego for the :" real deal" so we are doing our celebration early. Our daughter is delivering him from the Atlanta airport tonight. Our family has been enjoying this Challah since the mid 70's. We have it almost every week. The positive and negative of all the wild yeast baking is that I have not baked " my Challah" as often as in the past decades. Well this weekend it was a special request...Momma you HAVE to bake it. So here it is. 

I have posted my cast iron bakes quite a few times over the past years . Seeing the new-found interest in Tartine and the cast iron bake I thought I would post my bake today to illustrate how well the "usual" sourdough responds.