Blog posts

Baking with All-British Flour

I still had some leftover home-grown apples (not from our home, unfortunately). These apples were delicious, juicy and slightly tart. I wasn’t exactly sure what kind of apples they were. My guess would be ‘Golden Delicious’ because of its golden colour and sweet yet tart flavour.

My wife and I took a few days this past week to visit an area of South Africa that we had not seen before: the Drakensberg (Dragon Mountains) in the KwaZulu Natal province.  While there, we arranged for a trip over the Sani Pass into Lesotho, a small, mountainous kingdom entirely surrounded by South Africa.  And why would I be mentioning this in a bread-dedicated site, you might ask?  Well, because of something that we did not realize was part of the tour: a visit to a small village just a few miles past the border.

I recently "discovered" an absolutely marvelous eatery fairly near me here in Sacramento called Ravenous Cafe.  We first tried it a couple weeks ago and had a delightful meal, but as a bread freak I was astounded at the really great bread they served, unlike nothing else I remembered.  I called them a few days later to learn more about that surprising bread and had the chance to talk to the chef, Mark Helms, who described it as basically a "Country Bread" inspired by Chad Robertson's book

In baking, like in life, when you think you have a pretty good handle on things something comes along that reminds you that you have a lot to learn. Today's lesson was that I don't yet have the skills for excessive handling of generously hydrated loaves.

The bake today was Hamelman's Semolina Sourdough with sesame seeds inside and out. I thought I could lay my loaf in a tray of seeds without something bad happening, but it left me with a wiggle in my batard.

It is a glorious day in Brisbane today, the air is crisp and the sky is clear.  Where I came from it would be plum blossom raining season now.  Have you ever wonder exactly what you miss about a place when you are missing it?  My pen is blunt but I have flour in my hand to paint:

Last night I made a starter for cuban bread to bake today as well as the liquid yeast levain for Japanese Sandwich bread. 

I expected to see the cuban bread starter way up the sides of the container this morning as it contained 3/4 tsp of regular yeast.  I also expected a good result from the liquid fruit yeast after sitting all night on the counter even though our home is very cool..... 

As a long time lurker, it seemed like it was time to jump in and contribute.

I am an obsessive bread baker and recent convert to the joys of wild yeast. Today's bake was Hamelman's Whole Wheat Levain. Since it was my first attempt at this one, there were no modifications. As always there are things to improve on, but I was pretty happy with the results.

I have known for a while now that I would have to face my fear of wet doughs. Yes, fear. Absolute fear.

I am very good at breads that are relatively dry, and the only doughs that I've worked with that are wet weren't nearly as wet as the recipe I found here - Floydm's Daily Bread.

To be honest, I had a vague idea - at best - at what I was doing. I made a whole wheat poolish, and the rest of the flour was organic spelt. For good measure and texture, I added 1/4 cup flax seeds. I baked on a stone as directed.