Blog posts

A few days ago our son announced he had bought a scale, and he needed a straight dough formula for non-sourdough (his preference) "french bread".  He has been baking "French Style Bread" from "Beard on Bread" for a couple of years, and he wanted a weight-based formula for a similar bread.  I gave him some tips on how he could convert his cups-and-teaspoons formula to weights by baking to volume and weighing everything, and I also gave him the flour/water/salt/yeast basic formula for a 65% hydration straight dough bread for a loaf of about 850 grams.  I have not heard back fro

This is apx. 82% (the recipe 3 X's is apx. 84%) total hydration dough, that I think would be fun for anyone to try.  It is one of my favorites, I've posted HERE before.  The recipe comes from Rose Levy Beranbaum 'the bread bible' and a photo is displayed on the cover.

Hello, This formula has some rye sourdough in addition to a liquid levain.
This is the first time I've tried making a bread with rye sourdough; I'm looking forward to tasting!
These loaves really puffed up during the bake - perhaps a bit underproofed although thankfully there were no blowouts.
From breadsong

.

We are having an early Thanksgiving due to one of our son's being in town this weekend . He can't get back from San Diego for the :" real deal" so we are doing our celebration early. Our daughter is delivering him from the Atlanta airport tonight. Our family has been enjoying this Challah since the mid 70's. We have it almost every week. The positive and negative of all the wild yeast baking is that I have not baked " my Challah" as often as in the past decades. Well this weekend it was a special request...Momma you HAVE to bake it. So here it is. 

This is a variation on Joe Ortiz' recipe in The Village Baker (as indeed so many of my breads are).

Basically I've sourdoughed it up, and subbed in hot cereal for rye meal.

Evening of Day 0

Mix 1 cup rye flour with 3/4 cup warm water, and a tablespoon or so of active liquid starter ("sufficient" starter).

I know I've been concentrating on going low (on yeast) and slow (on the ferment) with my breads to improve the quality/flavour.  Sometimes, though, life intervenes.  I managed to use some of what I've learned here and elsewhere to get a reasonable quality bread ready very quickly.

My wife told me this morning that we were having Italian Sausage on pasta for dinner. I said "But I don't have any bread!" I decided to make Italian Feather Bread (which I have made quite a few times, but not lately) and try the steaming technique SylviaH described since I felt my previous steaming attempts were pretty weak. I am also using Better for Bread flour for the first time. (It is Buy One Get One Free at Albertson's this week.)

I added  cranberries to a biscotti recipe of my grandmothers making it part of our Thanksgiving dessert selection. We always add a little of our Italian heritage to each course of our dinner. Being in the middle of all the cranberry bogs on Cape Cod made it even more special this year.

http://turosdolci.wordpress.com/2010/11/11/cranberry-orange-biscotti-for-thanksgiving/