Blog posts

1. It’s been a long time since I’ve put anything here. Just to try again, here are some pizzas and desserts I’ve been making. Sourdough purism has given way to practicality and flexibility in the Southbay kitchen and sanitarium. Pizzas and buttery layers are just easy and nice with some quick rise. Kouign-amann really isn’t that hard to make and well worth the effort. And we’ve been making pizzas 6 in a night lately. I had a college job at Gumby’s Pizza in State College, PA some years back, and it’s fun to sort of get the assembly line going.

After getting some great advice from the group I have been baking panettone this holiday season with considerably more success than in previous years. I have written out directions for my use next year and have added them here in case they are of interest to anyone else. I will post some pictures separately. Thank you all for your shared expertise!!  Charlotte

Getting some improvent by bumping Temps a bit and taking the stone out for a few minutes before baking.  It seems with my element setup that reaching an ambient of 450F gets the stone up to 550F which will scorch the underside of my loaves.  Today I jacked the top element a bit more and then just removed the stone for a few minutes to allow it to drop down to around 450F.  Results look better yeah ? 

I found this recipe in a German paper.

These are really nice, crunchy, and a good alternative to bagels. The basis is a wheat sourdough and they are dipped in syrup and sesame seeds before baking.

This is nothing fancy just a regular sandwich loaf. But is my first after having heart transplant. Getting back at it is best therapy. Unfortunately while I was out my starter didn’t make it so I’ll be just doing yeast for now. My schedule is hectic right now and just don’t want to worry about feeding and maintenance. I did some research and just wanted some more insight on is it just as simple as adding the amount of flour and liquid back to recipe to convert some of my sourdough to yeast for now? And do I just use as much yeast as I want to control how fast the fermentation? 

After seeing everyone's delicious bakes, I finally got to make one of my own. I used Maurizo's recipe for the dough, but scaled it ~1.3x to fit a 13" pullman, so 1075g of dough. I used more filling than called for because I love sweets. One end was chocolate filling mixed with nuts, and one end was the chocolate filling with the cacao nibs. In total it was 300g of the chocolate filling, 90g of some extra baklava filling (nuts/sugar/cinnamon), and a handful of cacao nibs.

....and getting brave enough to post my progress. This is a no knead yeast recipe. 50% KAF AP, 50% home milled hard red winter wheat, 76% hydration. Progress!

I'm starting to feel comfortable enough with the basics to want to get into the sourdough world. Onward!

Now to figure out how to add the crumb shot.

Edit: even figured out how to add photos! I had better quit for the day while I'm ahead. ?