Morning everyone, in the last few days here in Quito the temp dropped to a max of 19 (outside) and as a consequence, my starter looks like a drunk person ...it doesn't want to "wake up"...suggestions appreciated...thanks in advance. Paolo
I recently re-discovered bread baking and was so exicted to find this website.
Today was the first time since before the Haiti earthquake that I was able to bake much of anything.
I baked a three seed sourdough (poppy, sesame, and flax) and an Italian bread (a pinch of yeast, some sourdough starter, and a couple of tablespoons of olive oil). Both batches turned out very well and my starter proved to be amazingly resilient.
It has been a few weeks since I last made my San Joaquin Sourdough. I had become so enamored of breads made with the Gérard Rubaud flour mix, I was starting to wonder if I would still like the flavor of the San Joaquin Sourdough as much as I had. Well, I do.
Yesterday, I made the breads with a 73% hydration dough and divided it into two 250 gm ficelles and one (approximately) 500 gm bâtard.
Better late than never, right?
I've been out of the loop for a little while, but I've still been baking. This week I have slowly worked my way through the flaxseed rye shown below, based on Hamelman's flaxseed rye from Modern Baking (link here to recipe here). I prefer to bake it as a pure sourdough, so the final proof is extended by approx. 50% compared to the original recipe. I've savoured the loaf with slices of brie, smoked ham or fish.
I baked this boule last week end.
As always, i have learned few thing from this bake:
1 - Never Underestimate the significance of Weighing Salt.
2 - Handling Fermented dough as if a new born baby, during inverting onto the baking stone / surface
3- For my gas oven: always switch the top elements on after 10 minutes of covered baking, as the bottom gets charred way before the top is browned.
4 - Always give the natural yeats time to do their work, hasting them with commercial yeast will reduce flavor.
I have a fondness for rosemary. Having an Austrian heritage with a splash of Irish thrown in, I also have an innate predilection for potatoes.
Naturally the Potato Rosemary bread in Reinhart's BBA was a bread that had to be made. Ever the joker, and not one to follow directions without change, I decided to see what would happen if I used blue potatoes. I eagerly anticipated reactions of surprise I would get with a blue colored bread.
I'm a long time home baker, and a recent convert to sourdough. I started lurking around here when I started getting into sourdough, I've learned a ton from the forums and blogs! I keep a personal blog elsewhere, but am finding I want someplace to keep track of my baking experiments. So...here I am.
Or something like that. As I sat here this morning waiting for a call back from the furnace repair man who said it was fixed on Wednesday, and carefully re-piecing the quilt pieces I had painstakingly unpicked over the last few days - I had time to mull this over. If a bread recipe doesn't work out the way it should, at least the results are usually edible. I know I have continued to work with dough that any sane person would have dumped and frequently been pleasantly surprised. Quilts, on the other hand, are not so forgiving.
