The other day I stopped into a Whole Foods store in the hope that I could find some white rye. I couldn't, in fact the person I spoke to had no idea what white rye was. But there on the shelf were bags of King Arthur Italian Flour. Wow! No shipping. But what to make? I decided on Ciabatta. Specifically Hamelman's Ciabatta with Poolish (p.
A few weeks ago, I made an accidental very sour rye bread, which had an addictive quality to it, but unfortunately failed in every other regard. So armed with advice from some very helpful people on the forum, I have been trying to make a successful loaf with that same tart and delicious taste. This I have not yet succeeded in doing. Yesterday I decided to try to follow the Hamelman pain au levain approach with some notable deviations to see where that would get me. So I started with the basic pain au levain formula, but upped the ra
It seems to me that if you are trying to gain proficiency in baking bread that it helps to pick a formula and make it over and over again until it starts to seem natural and easy. I'm not there yet with Hamelman's pain au levain but it ain't for lack of trying. My biggest difficulty with it so far has been something that should be simple - following the instructions. When I first started making it I viewed the rise times as something like suggestions. 2 hours seemed like a ridiculously long time to do the final rise, and I would do 1 hour and t
Yesterday I tried my hand at a miche after reading so much about these loaves on this site. I must admit that I had to restrain myself from dividing it into three loaves as I was wondering what a three person household was going to do with an almost four pound loaf. I tried Hamelman's Pointe-a-Calliere (page 164 of Bread.) I had to make a few modifications. I was planning to do 85% whole wheat flour, 15% AP, but ended up with around 60-40 because I was lower on whole wheat flour than I had thought. Since I was baking
I continue to bake in my mud oven - in fact I haven't baked any bread at all in my "indoor" oven so far this summer. It is a steep learning curve. Since I last posted, I have added a thermometer and a door (essential) a peel (helpful) and have started to use parchment paper to keep things cleaner. I continue to make my slow progress through Hamelman's Bread. Today I tried Semolina with a levain. (page 171) I split it into three small loaves which are a bit more manageable. Here they are.
I just finished making my first edible bread in my cob oven. In May I had no kitchen so wasn't able to bake at all. Then in June, I got my kitchen back, but I started the process of building an outdoor oven. Since I am not a handy person this was very challenging. I read Kiko Denzer's book from cover to cover, did soil testing on the dirt around my house, bought some materials, scrounged some materials and made some materials, and got some great advice on the forum here. I heard a lot of things about how you could make this sort of thing
Today I made Hamelman's poolish baguettes. Which retaught me a lesson I've already learned which is that making baguettes is hard. A month or two ago, I tried the Bouabsa formula several times, without having any idea that it wasn't reasonable to start one's baguette making career with that, so I backed off to Hamelman which I think is quite delicious in its own right. But it is still hard for the novice bread baker.
From this side it doesn't look so bad -
Sometimes baking bread seems to be about the challenge and developing the skills and trying new things and so forth. And sometimes it is all about making what you want to eat. When I started bread-making in earnest in January, I suddenly lost my taste for the supermarket bagels I'd been eating happily for several years. Since there is no good bagel place in my immediate area, I simply stopped eating bagels. But then many of you just kept posting and posting and posting your various bagel bakes, and I couldn't stand it anymore. So I decid
Recently I have been experimenting with making sourdough multigrain breads. My first attempt had 50% bread flour, 25% spelt, and 25% rye. Suffice it to say, I hope our friendly neighborhood coyote didn't break a tooth on it. Yesterday, I went down to 6% spelt, 6% rye. This wasn't bad. Today, I went down even further and made baguettes with 3% rye, 3% spelt. This was downright tasty. Here they are with a flag in honor of Patriot's Day.
