Blog posts

Amazon had the Chefman pizza oven on sale for $229, and I couldn't resist.

This is the first pie. In somewhat of a twist, the dough ball and sauce are grocery store, but I made the Romano, Asiago and White Cheddar cheeses, as well as the pepperoni. 

This was using the New York style preset (650F bottom, 600F top). I rotated 2.5 mins into the 5 minute bake, then added an addition 1.5 minutes at the end. 

It's not perfect, but I can definitely see that I can get there.

This recipe uses either yeast or starter, has a poolish, and the dough ferments overnight. I've used it many times and it's a good recipe from The Kitchn. Cooked in a ~325° electric frying pan, with lid, for 6 min per side.

Ragtag collection of rings. Lots of you don't bother with rings, but I have a quirk where, if I'm trying to replicate a store item, I want it to look like that item as much as possible. Didn't quite achieve it this time.

These are 40% white rye rolls with a little crunchy hat on top of them. God, the hats are so delicious. I generally only have enough stomach capacity for a roll, max 1.5 rolls, but I just want to eat the hats of all the buns. I asked the husband if I could please peel the hat off his bun and he says, yes, but please don't eat it because it's the best part of the bun! Zzzzz

Yes, I could bake a tray of hats exclusively, but it's different when the hat is on a bun.

Some breads just make me dream of what they taste like. For example, Lin's recent teff walnut and rye loaves. And in a good way they stimulate the creative juices as well as the Pavlovian ones!

Today's bake: Sand Dollar

Source: Richard Hart Bread

Notes: 
Substitutions: 

45% whole rye/55% bread flour (all the rye prefermented with a 3% inoculation for 12 hours) ... 1% caraway ... 1% salt ... total hydration ~80%

I found this flatbread on the Plötzblog free recipes (https://www.ploetzblog.de/rezepte/schweizer-kaesefladen/id=6263ef35a01cdf231c8ca86f) for March. It sounded delicious and looked easy to make. The flatbread is an AP/whole wheat flour dough topped with onions and a layer of Swiss cheeses (Gruyère, Emmental, and Appenzeller) with a milk/flour mixture to bind the cheeses together.

29Mar

If you don’t like onions, this one’s not for you!

I made caramelized onions in my slow cooker and used the water left over from the crying onions as part of the dough liquid. I used fresh milled spelt and Marquis whole wheat.

I definitely went overboard with the hydration on this bake, and I also let the bulk go too far. Spelt doesn’t do well if overhydrated, and it made shaping a little difficult.

29Mar

I love buying the Harvest Grain mix from Trader Joe’s. It makes an excellent side dish and is flavorful and healthy. It contains Israeli couscous, orzo, baby garbanzo beans, and red quinoa, which I cook in chicken stock and little oil. I have wanted to incorporate the cooked grains in bread for a while, so here you go!

I don't make a wide variety of breads, so don't have much to blog about. Thought if someone was looking online for the difference in finished bread colour between black and champagne gold pans, he might stumble across this. That's the grammatical "he", btw. Same dough, same bake, at 350° for 30min. No comparison of shiny, sliver pans because I've given up on them. Waaay too light.