Blog posts

Marcus (wassisname) mentioned in a recent post that his favorite "aromatherapy bread" of late was a 20% rye with raisins and dried coriander. I was intrigued by the flavor combination. I love cilantro (aka coriander) and grow it in my garden. It's one of the few things that seems to grow well. I tend to let it bolt and go to seed, but I think the tiny white flowers are pretty so I don't fret over it. I like adding the flowers to my salads.

Greetings lovely bready friends:)

It has been almost 12 months since I did a blog post.

I moved from a city of 2 million to a town of 16,000 (at peak times) ...

We lived in a house for the first 7 months (after our house purchase fell through) that had an oven from hell.

Looked like a dream BUT no!! So no baking, in fact limited cooking went on as well:(

We finally found a house we liked enough to buy after 7 months looking BUT the oven is not great...

Its ok, but not at all really a bread oven, hence bread and yeasty things have been scarce.

Several months ago I took a risk and plunged. I opened a microbakery focusing on central European-style breads... in Cambodia, Southeast Asia. Crazy, ain’t it? Prior to that, I was just an amateur baker, with a mediocre office job, who was obsessed with sourdough.

Anyway, during the last 2 weekends I sold my breads at a local craft market. So far we haven’t done too well, but before I get into details let’s fill you in on what we’ve been doing to stay afloat.

Caution: Photos of delicious German food ahead.

I love any bread made with Durum flour so I figured it would be a good idea to combine some fresh ricotta cheese along with a Durum starter and a porridge made with rolled oats and pearled barley.

I am continuing my journey into mastering this one loaf - and this marks 4 in a row that have been nearly perfect. Still 20% WW, 19% Very Active Firm Starter (VAFS).

Like @pipsbread, I am using mostly instagram now to chroncile my Baking journey. 

Check me out at @amberartisan.

ALSO: After saving 2 grad from summer jobs, I am intending to purchase a Rofco B-40 oven at christmas time and tremendously expand my prodcution level to include 2 or 3 farmer's markets in the summer! I'll keep you posted on Instagram.

Formula:

100% Bread Flour
6% Malted Milk Powder
6% Shortening
1.4% Vital Wheat Gluten
8% Canned Pumpkin
0.2% Lecithin
1% Instant Yeast
60% Water

Remix
8% Sugar
1.75% Salt
0.25% Cinnamon

This batch used 18 ounces of flour (510g), and was baked in an oversize loaf pan (5” x 10” x 3”).

I think I don't have to add to much text here the pictures will do it!!

So, I have been following the formula for Roberta's Pizza Dough, as reported in the New York Times.  However, after spending a fortune on a flour mill, I could not bring myself to purchase the '00' flour (nor did I find any whenever I was looking for it in the supermarkets).

Great recipe! Brotdoc did a great job with the directions on his website. The tricky part of this recipe, which I learned after baking is not to over proof!

Second, I have to admit I'm still learning how to form loafs (as my photo will attest to) which is why I picked this recipe.

The flavor was excellent, we had it this morning with butter, cheese. An excellent bread, I will make it again to get better at it!

Here's the link with the English translation through Google Translate -

Hello, everybody! This is my first blog entry on TFL, so I figured I ought to give some pretext as to who I am as a baker. I thought a good way to do this would be to show some loaves I baked this summer.

Semolina bread

Miche, Pointe-à-Callière