trailrunner's blog

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.

I am sorry for being so slow.  All  posted in the original thread on the SJ bread. I tried to answer all the great comments and questions. If there is something else please do ask. I love sharing and receiving on this board. c

David had posted a new improved version of his famous SJ. sourdough. I had told him I would give it a try and post the results...it is amazing. That is the only word for it. I used my rye starter as a substitute for the levain build. It was so lively and I wanted to see how it would work. WOW is all I can say. I doubled the formula for 2 loaves. It filled the 5qt bucket overnight in the fridge. I then removed it and shaped in lined baskets for one hour. I preheated my cast iron for 30 min at 500.

I had to get rid of starters and Larry's post the other day was the inspiration I KNOW he meant it to be :) I had enough bubbly weekold starter and I added that to his measurements. I added a couple more splashes of water as my KA mixed since it seemed dry and I wanted it to really slap the bowl. All went perfectly. I used my Grandmother's old blue granite roaster to bake. I have another really large one also. I have not tried this but saw the post by another TFL member and decided to give it a shot. Perfect. HUGE oven spring.