Blog posts

Red Fife Sandwich Loaf

Profile picture for user stellar
A square slice of bread with a tight cream crumb, with a dog looking at it longingly in the background

The first full work week of the year was pretty crazy for me, so instead of babying and (re-)starting my sakadane, I just made my usual sandwich loaf with some red fife flour that I have.

Tangzhong Milk Bread

Profile picture for user Floydm
Milk bread

I got a small Pullman pan for Christmas so I've been testing it out. 

I am starting simple with a white milk bread until I get a sense of how much dough it takes to fill it.

 The box the pullman pan came in said "450 grams," which I initially took to mean 450 grams of dough total. That isn't close to enough! And I didn't read this fantastic FAQ on pullman pans and dough weight until after baking. That said, though it was small, my first bake came out quite nicely.

Two biga loaves at a family party

Profile picture for user ll433
Two biga loaves, one with seeds and the other with walnuts

The request was for two loaves of bread for a family party of about 30. The bread would be served with pumpkin soup and alongside some tomato-based vegetarian mains.

I thought I would make two rather contrasting loaves but both 50% whole grain 50% white bread flour. One seeded loaf with khorasan and wholewheat, and the other with spelt and rye, mixed with a tablespoon of malt and some walnuts (ran out of cranberries).

Körnerrebe

Profile picture for user albacore

I saw this new recipe on homebaking.at and thought I would give it a try. I'm not exactly sure what a Körnerrebe is; it translates as grain vine, so a bit of a mystery - perhaps someone can enlighten me.

It's a yeasted recipe with a biga and a scald, but pretty simple. One thing to watch is that a special "half active" malt is used. I used my normal amount of diastatic malt ( 2.5g for a half recipe, which is what I made) and made up the difference with liquid ND malt extract (7.5g).

Ruchmehl

Toast

Hi guys, I was away for many years from your webpage and the blog, but I have now time for baking and finding new ideas.

Years ago, we had a discussion about a substitute for the Swiss Ruchmehl. Has somebody a good solution with a reasonable success?

I'm baking St. Galler Puerli with AP and Rye and they are excellent, but you need time for this bread.  I do another bun with AP and Acadian flour - an also very interesting combination.

Cheers - Hampi

50% khorasan biga

Profile picture for user ll433
Khorasan loaf

Made a 50% khorasan/bread flour with the khorasan in a biga. Whole khorasan flour was hydrated at 45% with 10% sourdough starter and left at 15 degrees for 14 hours. I then mixed the biga with bread flour this afternoon to make a loaf at 75% hydration. Bulk fermented at 18 degrees for 4 hours, proofed for 1.5 hours and baked at 220 degrees for 40 mins. 

I was expecting the mixing by hand to be very difficult, but it was really just like any other loaf. I enjoyed making the "apple crumble" texture biga!

Test Post With Altamura Image

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altamura-style durum loaf

This a test post to try the new image machinery, and to try editing the post.  Here's a crumb shot:

This was one of my efforts at making a Altamura-style loaf. Not bad, not great.

After saving the post, I used the "Edit" link to add this sentence.  So far, everything has gone smoothly.

[Added later] Here is my original post about this bake:

Playing with the new site photo uploads

Profile picture for user justkeepswimming

I'm going through the discovery process on how to do things on the new site. Sadly I deleted my profile photo (it needed replacing) before figuring out how to do things. Looks like most photos upload much more easily. I just can't seem to reduce the file size enough for the profile pic. 

Also, when I click on "preview", it shows me what things will look like before saving the blog entry, but I can't actually change anything on that screen. Using the back button gives fair warning that everything will be deleted. 

Meanwhile....