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My husband and and small boys quite like whitish sandwich bread, and although they like my sourdough boules and batards for dipping in soup, it is difficult to convince them to eat sourdough in any other form.  I have read in a few places that the long fermentation times plus the lactobacilli in sourdough improve the digestibility and lower the GI rating of bread (in comparison to bread prepared commercially with the shortest possible rises, etc).  Seeing as the family like toast and sandwiches from time to time, and I always make a instant yeasted loaf for that, I thought it coul

Ricotta torta is a much lighter cheese cake then the traditional NY cheese cake. It is a traditional Easter dessert.

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Last night I made the San Fransisco sourdough from 'Advanced bread and pastry' by michael Saus. Though this is a great recipe, the major point with this bread was the steaming technique I tried out. I have tried countless ways to efficiently steam my oven, including a moderately dangerous, self-invented water injection system... needless to say, results were not incredible, and most definately not worth the third degree burns.

Hey Pat,

I have been able to make time for baking recently, but not so much for other things like keeping up with my bread blog.  During the silence I've been pushing myself to higher and higher hydration levels on my straight sourdough bread formula, testing my own limits in handling high (to me anyway) hydration doughs, and learning about how it affects the finished loaf.  I think I've learned a lot, but the most important lesson has been:  I still have a lot to learn!

Pat, who has is enduring earthquakes, tsunami warnings and, worst of all, no access to bread baking this week shared with us the thought that having some bread to critique might lift her spirits. What better bread than that made from her own baguette formula?

Time for my semi-annual birthday cake update, right? This year's cake for my son was LEGO themed!

I guess I never posted last years cake -my son was super-into his Mad Magazine Spy-vs.-Spy comics and asked for this theme on his cake. I was really busy with planning the event which was at a roller skating rink, so the only thing I really did was to buy a plain undecorated sheet cake and decorate it to make it match.

Grissini are pencil-thick bread sticks, 14 to 16-inches long, and easily made in a few hours.  The dough is mixed, bulk fermented for an hour, then divided, rolled, and baked at 380F.

I tweaked Jeffrey Hamelman’s formula from Bread by using garlic infused olive oil and adding two ounces of freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. 

So, I happen to have a lot of rye flour, because of a communication problem when placing my order :-/

I usually add a small percentage of rye to my flour mix, but now I'm forced to try 100% rye loaves in every bake.

This week rye loaf was loosely based on Dan Lepard's 100% rye bread from "The Art Of Handmade Bread",

I soaked 50 gr of wheat berries in a bottle (330 ml) of Guinness Special Export overnight, and then boiled them for 45' on a very low heat, till the berries were tender.

Beat in 65 gr of rye flour and let it cool.