Blog posts

Inspired by necessity: I had a lot of pesto, and I hate wasting food.

Rather than mixing the pesto into the dough, I decided to create a simple sourdough, and then spread the pesto onto the pre-shaped loaves just before final shaping, to create a sort of "filled" effect. Pretty good results!

Ingredients:

350 g AP flour

100 g whole wheat flour

350 g water

100 g ripe white starter

11 g salt

10 g sugar

5 g toasted wheat bran 

5 g toasted wheat germ

Method:

I know you are thinking the same thing I am when Lucy came up with this one.  What is wrong with her?  No whole grains, no sourdough, no add ins – No Nothing Bread!

I was quickly reminded that we had company coming over for Valentines Day with one not even out of high school and they might nit like those other kinds of wonderful breads we like so much.

Lucy came up with a versatile 50% whole grain Kamut recipe that can be used to make any number of different breads by adding in what ever is handy or even left overs.

More than 2 years ago Lucy and I baked out first 100% Kamut Bread that was at 102% hydration.  Back then we weren't using straight rice flour in out baskets and the dough stuck causing a nasty disfigurement here:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/30081/100-hydration-100-whole-grain-kamut-flat-boule-yw-and-sd-combo-starter

Made this bread recipe a day ago. :) It was delicious! The crust is really crunchy, crumb is chewy. Since I don't have a Dutch oven (nor a proofing basket) I baked the dough on a cookie sheet so I didn't get that pretty bread on the cover nevertheless the bread is great!

I'm still on this 5% levain, 80% hydration kick! Both of these loaves built on the formula I referred to in my previous post.

The first was inspired by Dave's recent rosemary and black olive loaf. I just added a tablespoon of fresh rosemary, 60 g black olives, and 60 g green olives:

Taking a brief break from my baguette obsession, yesterday I decided to try something different, and Jason's quick ciabatta recipe posted by LilDice seemed perfect. Short turnaround, and I'd never dealt with such a high hydration (95%) dough before.

Basically a 1-2-3 Sourdough formula using two fresh baby Rye and Einkorn sourdough starters.  Started respectfully on Friday and Thursday of last week, this is their first loaf.  Last night they had peaked in activity (4 and 3 days old) and I combined:

1)   215g sourdough starter,  predominantly a rye sour 

2)   350g water with 50g Whole Einkorn flour Tangzhong.      Making a 70% hydration dough

My guru Abe, suggested I post this here.  I am new to sour dough but am hooked after just 4 bakes. I followed Hamelman's recipe, though with a much higher hydration %age (though he does say, "adjust the hydration"). 

Made 2 loaves: one the same day as mix, the 2nd after overnight in the fridge.  I should've refrigerated #2 right away, but we went out to dinner and I left it out a bit before over-nighting it and it over-proofed a bit. Was easier to score tho. Pics below. The nice topshot is of the 2nd loaf, the first pics of the same day bake.

Wanted to try something new.My mom had gotten a beer that she didn't like so we had 3 bottles that weren't going to be drank. I thought, why not soak some oats in it. The beer was River Horse oatmeal milk stout