Blog posts

I have never made beer bread before, so I had to do it, inspired by dabrownman's 16 grain and some other wonderful beer breads I have seen on this site.  My husband is a real beer guy, so the first order of business was not to use a beer he wanted to drink.  Someone got him some porter, and it is not his favorite, so I had my start. I should point out that I do not like beer, which is strange for a girl originally from Milwaukee. 

The A&D 1200i is a great scale for the kitchen.  It is a legal for trade scale accurate to plus or minus 0.1 gram and can weigh up to 1200 grams.  At 453.59237 grams per pound you can weigh over 2 pounds.  I bought the calibration weights and it is very easy to calibrate.  The 4 legs are adjustable so that you can get it level quickly by watching the bubble and adjusting the legs as neccesary.  It plugs in to any normal U.S receptacle.  It costs around $300 with the weights and does not come with the very expensive battery.

I have to begin with a disclaimer: I do not yet own the original Tartine book. I am slow and deliberate with all of my bread-related purchases, from implements and vessels to texts. I do plan to own it by the end of this month! My other disclaimer is that I have only been baking sourdough since November 1, 2014. I know this because the camera on my phone records dates (man, was I was excited about that first loaf...).

Experimenting this weekend. Had a delicious outcome. The bread is a combination of white whole wheat, rye, spelt, quinoa, amaranth, golden flax seed, chia seed and sunflower seed. It has both natural leaven and commercial yeast as well as olive oil and sorghum syrup. Turned out both lighter and softer than expected.

First I milled 165 g each of rye and spelt berries sifted out the bran and got 295 g flour and 28 g bran. Then hard white spring wheat was ground and sifted.

So here is a little background. I LOVE BREAD. So much so I decided to make that my career. I have been a professional baker for about five years now. I am self taught and have a real knack for bread making. It has taken me to some cool places. In the last two years I have been the bread baker for Chef Michael Smiths Village Feast in Souris PEI. I also worked with a CSA to make bread for 450 families in a local weekly produce pick up. All of this has led me to now. I am currently planning on opening my own baker this year.

Last loaf for 2014 is once again a panettone though it seems that there is a longer delay between when I baked it and when I post it. This year's special bake feature home made citrus peels (50% orange and 50% lemon) as well as beans from a vanilla pod for the added boost of flavour. 

It has been on my mind for a while to put a post together - my last one is from nearly two years ago! I better get this up before the winter semester starts on Monday.
I always get so inspired from all the wonderful things you are putting up on this site and cheer you on from the sidelines. 

These are a few things I have been making in the last months.
My son has been home from university over the Christmas break, and it has been so much fun feeding him. He lost about 6 pounds during the end-of-semester stress and I was more than happy to put those back on his ribs! :)

One of Mr Jeano's buddies expressed a wish for a loaf of sourdough, in the context of hearing another buddy was to be blessed with some rye bread. (The rye bread recipient had never eaten rye until he had some at our place). The buddy who wants sourdough commented his wife had gotten some at the grocery store and he'd really enjoyed it for sandwiches. (I will bet you almost any amount of money their local grocery doesn't carry unbleached flour, let alone bake any quasi-artisan bread).

Failure to plan. That was my situation this morning. I wanted to bake bread but failed to plan for it yesterday so I had no refreshed starter to elaborate, no poolish, no biga, no preferment of any kind. So I decided it was about time that I tried Jason's Quick Coccodrillo Ciabatta. I made the semolina version. 

I followed the formula exactly, using the greater amount of water. I baked with steam for the first 10 minutes and left the oven temperature at 500 F the entire time. The loaves were done in 15 minutes. 

I had a bit of levain left from my experiment with a Forkish loaf and I hate to throw it away.  I kept it on the counter feeding it a bit each day until Thursday when I said "that's it".  I followed gsnyde's San Francisco country loaf (found at this link http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/25402/sf-country-sourdough-%E2%80%93-my-best-ever%E2%80%A6not-sure-why), adjusting the formula to accommodate my 143 g of levain because you can't throw it out darn it.  Anyway