trailrunner's blog

the banana rye date and pecan bread made it to the iron skillet this morning! My maple syrup comes from a friends trees in Wisconsin. He taps each Spring. Delicious. 

how often can a person make and eat pizza before they get tired of it ?  Apparently a LOT !!  I wanted to see how this dough would do after X days in a plastic bag in the fridge. The answer is wonderfully. Very  much improved flavor profile and great holes !!  I used some of my chef son's sweet Italian sausage and it really added to the flavor. Same mode of operation as far as the rest of it. Layered sliced provolone on the bottom crust after it had risen for a while on the stove top. I made sure a put plenty of EVOO in the skillet before I laid the dough in.

Oh my....that's about all I can say. The blue granite roaster is definitely the way to go , at least I will not be using my cast iron anymore. Look at that ear :) and caramelization.  I had extra ripe bananas and I remembered posts from Shiao - ping and txfarmer using bananas and SD. I read and read and came up with a formula.

Took a formula that Ian had posted some time back and made a few changes . He made enriched buns as did I but I had 750 grams leftover so shaped a batard and pinched the bottom with flour in the crack hoping for a burst of creativity !  I got it. 

700g starter- 600g rye and 100g AYW 

600 g unbleached KA bread flour

225g durum

200g spring wheat 

100g soft cheese ( I used Délice de Bourgogne with the blooming crust pulled off) 

100g soft butter

85 g maple syrup

32 g salt

approx 650g water 

My grandmother's iron skillets make the best pizza. They are from the 1800's. They are 12" across. We have family getting in later tonight so I made these up so they will have something yum when they get here. Crust is somewhat of a guess and by golly as my Mom used to say. I had a couple levains left in containers and decided to clear them out. They were full of bubbles...one durum and one ww.

Boy I thought I was really doing something great. Took several large pieces of fresh pineapple peeling with the meat on it and dropped them into my AYW . It sure did get it to bubble and ferment and smell loverly....but oh boy. I never even thought about the enzymes and protease breakdown. Turned my bread to GLUE....I mean it was almost impossible to get it out of the bucket and into the garbage , never mind trying to get it off of my hands and the counter and the floor....you get the picture.

Thanks to Danni's  post I got out my starter , fed 'er up and started mixing. I followed most of her formula but used some Winter Wheat from Breadtopia and added 60g brown sugar to the fruit soaker with the 60g of butter. I didnt put any cinnamon due to her experience and I didn't want to do a swirl in the center of the bread. Maybe next time. 

What's not to love ? I had to clean out the freezer since we are going away for a year. I found 2 boxes of roasted pumpkin that I had put up last Fall. Enter this bread. What an amazing dough to work with. The key is to drain the heck out of the pumpkin. The rest of the procedure was like working with silk. The rapidity of the rise is accounted for by the AYW. More and more it is giving me results that are really impressive as far as texture and rise time. 

240 gm levain ( 100% hydration mixed rye/white)

600g water and AYW - 300g each

700g bread flour

We love Ian's take on this bread. So much so that I had to make it again this week as we were out and I had roasted a turkey breast and we needed something yummy for sandwiches. This bread is a delight to work with. I changed a couple things . My starter is always 100% hydration so I use less water in the final dough. I also " autolyse" using the levain with the flours and water since my levain is s major source of the water in the dough and without it there isn't any way to autolyse the flours. I subbed in 200g of AYW for part of the water.