Blog posts

I've read a number of places on this fantastic site about the benefits of soaking whole grain flours before incorporating them into a dough, and I happened to give it a try yesterday while preparing today's loaf of bread, a Rosemary and Thyme Sourdough Boule.  While I was preparing the fresh herbs, I added the usual amount of (hot) water to the 1 cup of wholewheat flour I wanted to use in the dough.  That soaked while I stripped the thyme off the stalks and chopped the rosemary needles.  I threw the herbs on top of the soaking flour (and incidentally, I had also added the tab

I made the dough for the evening restaurant class on thursday as there were quite a few absentees from the class the lecturer said you dont want to make the bread for me do you? The deal was that i had a free hand,and could make whatever I pleased! SO I had several bottles of coopers dark ale set aside that were up to their code date so at 2.30 pm I refreshed my sour dough starter and added what i would have discarded to 1.5litres of dark ale  and 1 kg of Bakers flour and made a nice slurry.

So here we are in New Hampshire.  Spring is arriving early it seems, which means we will soon have to hang up our baking hat for the business season.  Lately we have been experimenting with a daily loaf.  Looking for the right combination that everyone in the house will enjoy.  That is very hard if impossible, since one family member likes "wonderbread" style wheat and on the other end of the spectrum another enjoys a hearth style toothsome bread.  Others in the household, in between.  Even the english springer spaniel has a favorite in a cr

It was Dan DiMuzio who first brought to my attention that people who came from a pastry background are more sensitive to ideas about design and fashion when they become bread bakers.  I regularly visit a Brisbane specialty chef and bakers store to see what's new.  I was there last week looking for a gigantic stainless steel bowl for long batard or gigantic miche baking one day.  Just about I was leaving, I glanced over the New Arrival books section.

Hi folks, it's a long time since I wrote my last post....from votrepain.com i got the link of a shocking video! in youtube you just have to digit: michael voltaggio makes bread in the microwave..At first I was speechless, now I feel very sad and even a bit insulted : you can be an amateur or a pro, but if you bake it's because you have passion, soul and love for this ! Newbies home bakers might think making a good loaf is easier than in the true life! If Saint Honore, the baker's saint could say something, what do you think he'd say?

The recipe is from right here on this site: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/blueberrycreamcheesebraid , thanks, Floyd! I kept the dough a tad too wet at first, but easily corrected by adding a bit of flour.

This is not bread, it's cake!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCBxX42GQmU

A friend asked me about my bread baking technique and so I made a Youtube video.  It's pretty homey and casual.  Maybe someone will get something out of it.

Errors: "baguette" should be "batard", baking time 525 10 minutes, 470 20 minutes.

:-Paul

Last week nicodvb posted his most recent trial of 100% Rye flour bread. He declared it as good so I thought I would try it out and see if I could follow his steps.

I am biking from St. Augustine FL to SanDiego CA. I am using this as an opportunity to raise awareness of hunger in this country . My local Food Bank, Food Bank of East Alabama, is helping me by placing barrels in local spots in my town of Auburn/Opelika AL. I am trying to raise 3100# of food as well as $ 3100 since the trip is 3100 miles. We will take about 60 days to do this so it is also a personal celebration of my 60th year on this earth. I am in Day 7 today and we are in Marianna FL. at the library. I will check in periodically. Here is my log so far .