txfarmer's blog

This baguette has many inspirations: the long cold autolyse from Anis, long cold bulkrise from Gosselin, SD instead of instant yeast from David's San Joaqin SD... With 12 hr autolyse, 24 hr cold rise, the process last at least 40 hours from start to finish, however, very little time is spent on real work, most of the time, I just have to wait and let time do its magic.

This year Chinese Mid Autumn Festival falls on 9/22, Wed, even though it still feels like high summer here in Dallas, I have been making traditional mooncakes to mark the occasion.

Traditionally, it''s a holiday for people to gather with loved ones. The round moon symbolizes "togetherness" and "family". My parents are in Seattle, while my husband's family is all the way in China, so we can only celebrate with them spiritually.

Another very tasty bread from Dan Lepard's "A Handmade Loaf", I mostly followed the formula, but left out the instant yeast, using rye starter only, which means the bulk rise was 3 to 4 hours at room temp, then shaped and retarded the loaves in the fridge overnight. The next morning, took out, warmed up for 1 hour, then baked.

Just got back from my 2 week vacation in Kenya/Tanzania last weekend. It was our first time visiting Africa (one more continent off the list, Antarctica is the only one left to tackle now), so much too see! We did 10 days of safari trips, 4 parks in Kenya and 2 in Tanzania.

Harbin(哈尔滨) is a city in Northeast China with a heavy Russian influence. Around 1913 the first generation of Russian immigrants came mostly to work for the Chinese Eastern Railway, since then they left noticable marks on local culture, one of which is : 大列巴(pronounced: Da Le Ba). This is a miche like sourdough bread that' was first introduced to the locals by a Russian baker, and has been sold in Harbin bakeries for over a hundred years. Even its Chinese name was originated from Russian word khleb (bread).

This past weekend was big for our household - July 30th is my birthday and our 5th anniversary, July 31st is my husband's birthday, lots to celebrate. Made some baguettes and the following Polish Cottage Rye from "Local Breads"

This bread has been well documented and recommended on TFL, see here for formula.

JT's 85X3 formula can be found here, I made several changes:

1. I don't have type 85 flour, so I followed Farine's advice and mixed 80% bread flour with 20% ww flour

2. I didn't use yeast in the final dough

3. I added a 30min autolyse before mixing, and let it rise for 3 hours at room temp, with 3 folds (one per hour), after that I shaped the dough and put it in fridge overnight for about 10 hours