Blog posts

In my last post, my writing in English was complimented by some TFLers. Since this is my last post in the last day of the year (in a few minutes it will be already 2016 here), I will make this special by writing in my first language (We are a former Spanish colony and although we don't speak Spanish, we retained some of their words. If you speak Spanish, you may find similar words with different spelling but the same meaning), it has also many pictures because I also want to show a way of life here.

After 2 weeks of making new weird stuff; a witch yeast and a cooked potato starter, Lucy decided to combine them with our rye sour starter to make a triple levain bread quite unlike many other triple levain breads usually available everywhere else.

No sourdough or yeast. A quick savoury loaf made with coarse polenta, sweet corn kernels, rosemary and grated parmesan. It is really good with a just a bit of butter.

• 120g 100% hydration levain (11%flour and 11%water)
• 171g fresh milled kamut (31%)
• 284g bread flour (50%)
• 45g ap flour (8%)
• 160g wine soaked figs (20% fig 9%wine)
• 112g wine (20%)
• 298g warm water (58%)
• 100g toasted walnuts 18%
• 12g salt (2%)

Im kinda getting a hang of this bread and i love it. Mixed by hand instead of a mixer which the recipe called for and did 4 stretch and folds at 30 mins interval. After that into the fridge it went for 4.5 hours (because i had to go out). Recipe called for it to be shaped before being retarded, if desired. pre shaped straight from fridge, benched for 30 minutes. Final proof for 45 mins before loading into oven with towel steam.

About a year and a half ago, The New York Times featured the formula for the Tartine Country Bread in their food section.  I dutifully copied it off and even more dutifully dropped it in the back of my pack of formulae for "sometime in the future".  Finally deciding to make the loaf as baguettes, I didn't stop to consider that there is a Tartine baguette formula also and that it is quite different than for the Country Bread, and with a much lower hydration.  

Sometimes when my heart's heaving, when I'm struggling to smile or lift my head high, I think about my friends, my beloved customers.

One time, a regular at the farmers market gifted me a bag of organic rye flour (non-existent in Cambodia) & a glass bottle of baker's yeast... manufactured in 1956!

My jaw dropped.

Another time, another regular surprised me with a bottle of 100% pure, natural maple syrup (another scarcity in Cambodia) harvested by her family in Canada.

As a Canadian, f**king eh!!

With Lucy’s success, after 3 tries, at the Methodist Ladies, 1906 Witch Yeast, Lucy thought she could move on to a more difficult starter - especially now that she has finally passed the last of the aluminum foil wrapped Hershey’s Kisses she ate a couple of days before Christmas – nearly a whole bag of them.  So much for chocolates being poisonous for dogs too.

This bread was the last minute thought to accompany some left over vegetable, squid and bay scallop chowder that is a mainstay at Christmas Eve dinner. It also served as a means to use up some starter that needed refreshed and some cheese left over from the same meal. Since time was short it is a hybrid with 125g starter and a pinch ( too small to weigh with my 1g minimum scale) of commercial yeast. The flour,500g total, is 50% fresh ground white whole wheat and 50% AP.

  I made a version of this bread in the summer and decided to bake it again with some modifications to bring to our friends house for Christmas dinner.  I usually bring some type of rye bread to go with the Christmas ham and figured a nice moist porridge bread would do the trick.

I decided to add some beer which usually gives Rye a wonderful flavor and I also added some toasted onions to the second build of the starter to really enhance the onion flavor profile.