Blog posts

Please see here and here to learn more about concentrated lactic acid sourdough (CLAS). 

I believe in the rewards of helping others. When someone on the forum needed a nostalgic bread recipe, I experimented with one. While it may not be their perfect match, it's become a tasty alternative to my family's beloved cranberry walnut daily bread.

Here is the latest in the 100% spelt Laurels Loaf For Learning series. It's the 2nd one I made with a scald. 

The first I tried (not pictured) used the original recipe hydration of 73%, which gave me a dough remarkably lacking in extesibility. The final bread tasted good but didn't rise well and had a bit of a claggy crumb.

A few days ago I posted about a loaf of bread that included cooked oatmeal and graham flour (see https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/73391/oatmeal-graham-flour-sourdough-pullman-bread). I wanted to try it with buckwheat, and I found a box of Wolff kasha, which are toasted buckwheat groats.  Perfect!

I gave up doing bran scalds in my whole wheat bread a while back, as it didn't make much difference in my bread and I didn't enjoy all the fiddly sifting and messing about with it.  These days I just mix the dough and let it sit for half an hour to hydrate before I start kneading.

Hi everyone,  I'm happy to be back after a year of having a young person with celiac sharing my home.  They have moved on and I can mill and bake again without worrying.

To celebrate, I brought out my barely-used Nutrimill Artiste mixer and started really digging in to try and learn exactly how a fully kneaded,  fully developed 100% WW dough looks and feels.  And since spelt is my favorite-est  most delicious wheat, I've extended the project to 100% spelt.

Hello TFLers! Long time no read! It's that time of the year again for my mandatory year-end post.

Semolina bread. Two 750-gram loaves. 60% durum flour and 68% hydration. 15% of the total flour is pre-fermented in a liquid levain. Hamelman does not include an autolyzed stage and it appears that it is not required for the durum flour. I’m very happy with the result. The crumb was more open than I was expecting and the crust slightly chewy.  Eating quality excellent and very different from my usual sourdough.

I recently had a birthday and decided last minute to bake myself a cake since we were meeting friends for dinner.  I LOVE chocolate and remembered seeing this recipe by the awesome Stella Parks (BraveTart).  It turns out that this is a super easy super delicious cake that is actually vegan and almost flourless (no eggs or dairy).  Also what flour is in it is all whole wheat.  It is practically healthy especially for a cake.  The cake is super tender but I’m still shocked that something with such a simple ingredient list can bake into a cake.

This is my take on what is apparently a traditional Venezuelan Christmas bread that turns out to be super yummy.  As I said before, my various takes on Hokkaido SD milk bread prove to be so flexible.  I used my 35% WW version for this bake.  The dough gets rolled out and then ham, sliced green olives stuffed with pimentos and finally raisins and applied.  It is all rolled up into a cylinder and then eventually baked.  Did I say it is yummy, salty and a bit sweet from the raisins.