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Whole Wheat-Spelt with Caramelized Onions, Cheddar and Parmesan Cheese with a Spelt Tangzhong

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I dare you to say that 10x fast!

This one was made with fresh-milled Butler’s Gold and Spelt from Barton Springs Mill. The rest of the flour was King Arthur bread flour.

The caramelized onions were cooked in my mini-slow cooker overnight. I drained them in a strainer to remove as much excess liquid as I could, and used the onion water as part of the water for the main dough.

I used a generous amount of cheese in this bake, combining shaved Parmesan and 10-year-aged Vermont Cheddar, both cut into small pieces.

High Extraction Yecora Rojo Batarda

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two loaves of bread

I recently picked up Richard Hart Bread: Intuitive Sourdough Baking, in which Hart describes a very simple shaping method for his "City Loaf". Basically, after pre-shaping into a round and resting, he folds it in half like a taco and places it in the banneton. According to him, there's no difference in oven spring or ear formation vs the convoluted stitching and rolling method he learned at Tartine. I decided to give it a shot, so I doubled my normal recipe to do a side-by-side comparison.

first bake with a new starter

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rye bread

I made a new rye starter and was surprised how relaxed the process was now that I know a tiny bit about sourdough. It had a few pin-sized holes from leuconostoc bacteria on the first day. By day 2, it had way more pinholes and started smelling like a combo of soggy grain and a pile of overused sweaty running shoes. Over a week of 1x a day discard and feeding, it acidified nicely. By day 10, it was rising and falling regularly, had small and medium sized holes, and was smelling sprightly and tangy. So I made my first bread with it:

Matera-inspired rimacinata loaf

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100% rimacinata loaf

Decided to try-out the techniques I read and heard about from the locals when visiting Matera over the Christmas holidays to make an almost 100% semola rimacinata durum wheat loaf.

Didn't try the characteristic shaping. Thought it better to take on one challenge at a time, but the texture and flavour have come out superb. Maybe the best 100% rimacinata bread I have attempted so far. Here are the details:

Feeding 100% hydration SD starter

Wild Yeast Blog - Susan’s Bagels

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Bagels

I haven’t made these in ages. It was time today. These are 50% home milled rye all of which was in the levain. 

I doubled the formula to get 16 / 100g bagels. I always use lye , absolutely no outrageous precautions needed except a towel to keep them from sticking to parchment/ pan. 

I didn’t retard these and it makes everything much easier , they rose beautifully. Very pleased . 

700g AP - Arrowhead Mills

240g cold water

56g milk powder

34g non- diastatic malt powder 

20g salt

600g active levain