Blog posts

I found a great pretzel recipe here by Floydm The crumb was crunchy and the real bread was chewy. Again, This is a great pretzel recipe and I recommend every one to try it. Thank you Floydm.

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/pretzels

I also converted the measurements to grams. Find the conversions below.

      1 tsp Active dry yeast ( 3g)  The yeast ran out, it was actually less 1 tsp.

I love making tarts! It's my new obsession! I've tried a couple recipes, but this French Date and Almond Tart is my absolute favorite... Well after some recipe testing and revisions. In fact, I love it so much that I'm officially naming it my signature pastry.

This recipe is from "Advanced Bread and Pastry". Using white and whole wheat flour, wheat germ, and cracked wheat (aka. bulgur, my new favorite bread ingredient), the bread is super fragrant and packful of flavors. I wanted to convert the formula to use sourdough, but was busy preparing for and running a half marathon last weekend, so stuck to the poolish version in the book.

From the last bake, all dressed up and ready to be consumed:

This wasn't my first Pain Au levain, but surely the best of the bunch. I have baked Vermont Sourdough with increased wholewheat, and Pain Au levain with Mixed Sourdough starters...Those were not successful as i was struggling with ways to please my starter.. But i loved this one! No wonder why so many TFL members bake it frequently.

I so enjoyed Franko's post on his Pineapple Macadamia  sticky-nut Bun last week I had to give it a go. His crumb shot makes me drool and the step by step directions convinced me I could make a stab at something I don't do all that often. Sticky buns or cinnamon rolls are great but I shouldn't really eat things like that as a mild diabetic so I don't make them often. Let me tell you the effort is well worth while. This is a good idea Franko came up with and I haven't seen it anywhere before that I recall.

Continue my weekend baking with rye bread. This weekend's bake was sourdough rye with walnuts and raisins. The bread has 35% rye flour. The recipe came from Hamelman's Bread cookbook.

I followed Hamelman's recipe by including commercial yeast and skip my usual overnight dough retardation. One of the advantages of including commercial yeast is a a shorter fermentation schedule. It only took 3.5 hrs to have the fresh loaves from the mixing.

I went on a shopping trip today here in Sacramento, visiting some bakeries I've never been to before and fetching esoteric flours I can't get at my neighborhood grocery.

Here's what I bought where, and what I thought of it:

1.  A baguette from Freeport Bakery on Freeport Blvd (Tasted like day old bread made with cake flour, weightless squishy stuff, didn't care for it at all!)

2.  A loaf of Deli Rye with caraway seeds from The Bread Store on J Street (A beautiful nearly spherical loaf, chewy and delicious, loved it!)