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Last sunday we went over to my mom's for a mother's day brunch with the family.  My mom asked me to "just take a baguette out of the freezer".  You know, since baking a batch of bread in time to leave for a 11am brunch (we live about an hour away) would be tricky.  The problem?  No baguettes in the freezer--we've run through them all since I finished up my baguette quest.  

The other day, I accidentally picked up the wrong flour.    I thought I was grabbing the Bob's Red Mill White flour but instead ended up with BRM whole wheat pastry flour.   I'm not much for making pastry and the whole concept of whole wheat pastry eludes me, so I decided to try this flour in yet another variation on the pain au levain I've been experimenting with for the last few months.    On my first try I used the pastry flour as 12% of the total flour with 87% White flour and 1% rye from the starter.    The bread came out

Heading up north for some turkey and mushroom (morels) hunting. The only thing my family asked before they let me go was: Make sure we have enough bagels and multi-grain rolls! I believe I complied with this weekend's bake:

Happy baking!

Thomas

I think I know at least 6 different ways of shaping bâtards. I often choose how I shape them on impulse. This weekend, I decided to be a bit more reflective and consciously chose 3 variations to try. I think I gained better control over bâtard shaping as a result.

I made two loaves of Hamelman's Pain au Levain from “Bread” and two loaves of my San Joaquin Sourdough.

The first loaf was shaped using one of the methods learned from the San Francisco Baking Institute. I can't recall seeing this method demonstrated elsewhere.

Back from vacation, I needed to bake some sourdough.  Tartine’s Basic Country Bread has become my favorite.   Its crumb is my ideal texture for a hearth bread--just the right amount of chew, and airy and moist.  But, as I’ve noted before, large loaves just aren’t practical for our everyday use.   Last time I baked a batch, it was one large loaf and two small ones.  This time I made four half-kilo loaves, two batards and two boules.

So, in the last few days, I have had a couple fails.

(Not fails. Just methods that don't really work.)

First, I started a sourdough starter. It was going fantastically but then I suspect my father-in-law may have inadvertently raised the temperature of the room too high (we have wood heat and he does adore a good roaring fire, even this late into spring), and I think it did terrible things. Not his fault, I don't think he had any idea I was making a starter and even if he did, he wouldn't have known the implications. If I have the motivation, I'll start anew tomorrow.

crackling country sister loaves

when these two batards crackled out of my oven they reminded me of my sister, marilyn, and me standing side-by-side in her kitchen over a pillowy-soft ooze of dough. i've been teaching her to make bread over the last 6 or 7 months.

. . . after 2 visits

• photos

We’re back from our trip to the Kona Coast on the Big Island of Hawai’i.   Since we spent a lot of time in the ocean, and another large part out enjoying the sights and flavors of the islands, there were not a lot of occasions for baking.   Plus, though our friends’ house where we stayed has a well-equipped kitchen, it isn’t well equipped for baking.

Well, I quite failed to get around to blogging last weeks' ciabatta attempt, and now here it's Saturday and I have another bake to describe.