Blog posts

Hello everyone,
When checking out last Friday’s Yeastspotting post, I saw two posts for Granville Island Beer Bread
(both breads looked fantastic!).
Looking at the posts, I saw The Bread Baking Babes selected this bread for the April challenge.
Granville Island Brewing’s beers are available at a nearby store (perfect!) –
I thought it would be fun to pick up some of this beer and participate in this month’s challenge  :^)

This week I have cooked up a couple of breads to test my skills using my powerful sourdough and 00 flour.

Sourdough / Natural Leaven:

I spent a few days refreshing this firm starter for the panettone. Feeding 4 times a day, every 4hrs.

San Francisco SD:

It is a stunning Autumn morning – crisp and clear. Outside a container of dough gently rises and for the first time all week I have a chance to sit and write a post for the blog.

I read about and saw pictures of gorgeous flaxseed ryes coming out of members' ovens last week and I thought I'd give it a try, but I don't like to bring new flours or specialty ingredients into the house until I use up much of what I already have. Such is life in a small New York City kitchen. Finding no rye and no flaxseeds, flaxseed rye was pretty much out of the question. There was some flaxseed meal, though, and a nice bag of Central Milling whole wheat, so I went that way.

Eccomi qui per condividere alcuni scatti della panificazione di questo venerdi/sabato, ospite nel laboratorio di un amico. Solo foto nei momenti liberi, quindi niente foto dell'impasto ... avevo le mani sporche.

[color=blue]Here I am to share with you some pics of this friday/saturday bake, guest in the lab of a friend. Only photos taken in the free time, so no shots of the dough ... I had my hands "dirty".[/color]

Today my mom requested I make bread for her. As I was thinking about what to make for her, I saw eggs and milk we had just bought. I thought milk and egg bread would be perfect for mom as she loves soft crust and soft crumb.

I am not good at measuring but here is what I used to make this delicious loaf of bread.

1 large egg

3 tbsp powdered milk

¾ tsp instant yeast

1/3 cup sugar (yes this bread is super sweet)

2 ½ cups of flour

After the last bake's attempt for flavor instead of holes, this bake was for baguette holes.  I also had some hemp seeds burning a hole in my pocket so thought they would be appropriate.  Burning, burning holes, holes and hemp are baggie proof and go way back to SF in the early 70's as far as I can personally attest.

These are my first few attempts at baking with wild yeast only.

The first was a San Francisco style sourdough, recipe from Weekend Bakery. Not much rise/oven spring. The crust was crunchy but the crumb was way too chewy. The starter was 100% rye at 100% hydration

Today we had a wonderful breakfast and lunch thanks to sweetbird's fine bread that had pistachios and soba noodles added to it by a 'butcher' or as Varda says a 'postmodernist'.  When toasted, this bread, like most, takes on a new life that is hearty and modern too.

As a classic smoked salmon, grilled chicken, tomato and basil feta cheese, lettuce and mushroom masterpiece - rarely attempted by the most professional sandwich artisan, this bread comes into its own saying 'You Know I Ain't No Slimy White Slice Sweetbird'