Blog posts

For the first bake of 2025, I figured I would try something new. I’ve never combined a Tangzhong with a Scald. I used fresh milled green corn flour for the scald, which had boiling water poured over it and stirred until combined.

The final mix was done in my Ankarsum and open-baked with steam.

This was a very high-hydration dough, and with all the fresh milled flour, it ended up over proofing. I should have baked it the next morning, but I had to go to work, so 18 hours ended up being too long. The dough didn’t hold its shape and had very little rise.

Cranberry + white chocolate with (maybe a bit too much) almond glaze ... in the oven

The glaze was a last minute decision. Not the best looking, but ok.

A month ago (Christmas Day, actually), Tony (CalBeachBaker) posted his bake of the Danish rye bread from Stanley Ginsberg’s The Rye Baker.  I commented that it looked like a great choice for a high-rye bake that I was contemplating.  So, I made it this week.

Practicing baguettes is so much fun! I decided to scale down my baguettes from 29% soybean 78% hydration to 23% soybean 70% hydration to emphasize shaping and scoring.

apparently soybean is too fatty to allow me to produce open crumb. Still have to practice!

Jay

I am getting back on my sakadane experimenting! I built up a new starter with the koji rice that produces more amylase, and also did a mini experiment with trying to feed it only rice, instead of koji rice + cooked rice.

For anyone looking for a recipe involving a nice amount of emmer flour (and for anyone who already likes the flavor of emmer), this has become my go-to recipe.  The levain consists of 30 g of starter, 80 g of emmer flour, 80 g of bread flour, and 180 g of water.

So the recipe says to mix and “let double” for 8 to 18 hours. How do I know if I let the dough overproof? I prepared the dough at noon and checked before going to bed but felt maybe I should let it continue to rise. (My previous breadmaking experience taught me to allow the fermentation to develop longer.) This morning it looks like it’s fallen and has a strong alcohol smell. Yikes! So where’s the sweet spot? How do I know when’s enough???

Just wondering if anyone may have any attachments for a crypto peerless ec30 mixer?

Looking for dough hook and I think there was another attachment that whent on the front of the head 

Following up on my last loaf, I made a tangzhong milk bread again using the same formula but using 200 grams of Anita's 60/40% whole grain flour. So it ends up between 10-20% whole grain.

I made the tangzhong milk bread in my Pullman pan again today. It came out well! The only difference was I used powdered milk (50 grams) and water rather than liquid milk. I also rounded up to 10 grams of yeast.

It fit my pan perfectly, just hitting the top without significant leaking or compression.