Hello and happy holidays, everyone!
The Bread Baker’s Guild of America (bbga.org) offered a course, Italian Holiday Baking, in September 2013. I was delighted to attend, the class was outstanding, and it was taught by Chef Biagio Settepani of Pasticceria Bruno in New York.
SJSD is a wonderful loaf of mildly acidic sourdough with a most excellent crust and a lovely open crumb from a long cold bulk ferment and minimal handling. It also works very well for me since I'm limited on space in the fridge. I can reduce the 24-36 hours in a cold fridge and leave at a slightly warmer temp outside overnight. Right now that is in the high 40's low 50's. As winter pushes along it will be colder and I simply just mix it earlier in the evening to give it extra time.
Even though I haven't been blogging, I have been baking quite a bit. Other than my weekly loaves, lately it's been mostly non-bread. Like these spicy ginger molasses cookies. The cookies contained grated fresh ginger and dried ground ginger. Other spices in the cookies were green cardamon, black pepper, cloves and cinnamon. Super spicy and gingery. Not for the faint of heart.
...into the holidays. A practice pie (okay, so I wanted pie) apple-pear with brandy-soaked raisins and cranberries. The vent hole began as a heart shape and the top crust was a bit thin at the edges, so juices leaked through. But the crust is flaky and crisp - 25%WW, and the fruit held its shape and is quite flavorful, so no complaints.
To all of you who read and contribute to this site, thank you for helping us all take our interests and knowledge to a higher level.
Happy Holidays!
Cathy
Holy Sprouted Wheat Batman! There is something about sprouted wheat that adds a softness and creaminess to the crumb that is hard to describe unless you try it for yourself.
used bread flour, heritage whole wheat and rye for this loaf.
started with a pre ferment about 16 hours
G 35g 100% starter (mine is rye)
35g water
35g bread flour
final dough
310g bread flour
100g heritage whole wheat
100g dark rye
12g sea salt
1 tsp toasted and ground cumin and coriander seeds
autolyse at least 1 hour
bulk fermentation 2 hours with stretch and fold at intervals of 30 mins
preshape and bench 10min
final shaping and proof in banneton for 45 min to 1 hour
was to have a go at a basic sourdough using formula I read on TFL - 1 part starter, 2 parts water, 3 parts flour with 2% salt. I wanted a basic white loaf I could slice and freeze. Made the liquid levain from my firm starter last night and used almost all of it to get 1 loaf and a boule. This was the wettest dough I have ever tried so I did lots of stretch and folds over the early part of bulk fermentation time then left it much longer to ferment on the kitchen bench at about 25oC. Am happy with results as I had wondered how it would ever hold its shape.
After last week’s Cosmic Calamity, Lucy has settled back down to her normal self but had to have a beer to celebrate her notoriety as the center of the universe even if only for one day. She has an affinity for darker beers and decided that Deschutes Black Butte Porter was perfect, not only for celebrating but for bread making too.
I used to make the buttermilk bread from the Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book as our everyday sandwich bread, but then I discovered an overnight fermentation recipe and the colour, texture, and taste are so much better, I don't think I can ever go back to an all-in-one-day bread recipe.
