Blog posts

I love pie, it is my favourite dessert.  The pie I made last week was great and the pastry was the best most tender all butter pastry for pie crust that I’ve ever used.  If you’re interested in that recipe I shared it here.  This recipe I’m making this week is from The Book on Pie by Erin McDowell.  If you haven’t seen her book yet, it is very good with lots of unique pie ideas.

I had some black sesame seeds that I had ground with some sugar 6:1 ratio a while back for a flavoured milk bread I had made. I felt like having a black sesame flavoured bread so decided to add the ground sesame seeds to my 100% whole wheat sourdough bread. The colour of the dough was fabulous a wonderful grey brown with some black spots from slightly larger bits of black sesame seeds. I unfortunately made a boo boo during the baked and baked at 500°F for 25 mins with steam forgetting to drop the oven temperature.

I have never made brioche before but was so inspired by Melissa’s brioche bubble buns that she shared with us Sourdough bubble top brioche. a while back so I decided since I am on a whole grain kick that I’d try to develop a recipe for sourdough brioche composed of 50% whole wheat. I loved her shaping of these buns so used her method shaping three small boules and baking them in a muffin pan. I used my now standard stiff sweet levain in order to avoid sour tang in the brioche.

Back in February, when @DanAyo posted about his experiences with an unexpected (by me, anyway) style of enriched sourdough posted by @txfarmer in 2011, I decided to give it a try.

Inspiration from here https://przepisynadomowyserichleb.blogspot.com/2017/02/niemiecki-chleb-zytni-razowy.html?m=1

Sour preferment:

200g Bob's Red Mill 10 grain hot cereal

200g lukewarm water 

20g g old rye starter from the fridge 

2g salt

Kefir yoghurt has been a supplement to my breakfast for many years now, but I wasn't aware that the kefir culture could be used to leaven bread until Abe mentioned it in a comment here.

Here's a fancier, takes longer to make, savory and smells-oh-so-good flatbread: Pol roti (coconut roti)!

I don't post very often anymore, but I'm still out here, still baking, still reading about everyone's beautiful bakes! Hats off to you all!!

I often do a same day bake. I mill my own whole wheat, and the starter/levain goes crazy with that. I have over proofed more often than I care to remember. Now that I have found the sweet spot for proofing time, I haven't wanted to try an overnight refrigerator proof. Maybe this summer ... I could also reduce the amount of starter vs levain and let it go longer, but this timeline works so I haven't fussed with it.

Adapted from KAF No-Knead Harvest Bread

700g bread flour (Walmart)

300g white whole  wheat flour (Prairie Gold) 

20g salt

7g dry yeast 

800g cold water 

100g pecans,  chopped

100g dried cranberries, cut in 3-4 pieces 

Mix roughly,  let rest 20 minutes,  then 3-4 SF every 20-30 minutes. Mix fruits and nuts into the dough now, or laminate them later

Bulk ferment 2-3 hours, depending on your room temperature 

Divide in 2, form loaves, place in two clay bakers with covers

Tinkered with my Everyday Sourdough recipe by adding some freshly milled Kamut as well as incorporating some soaked Kamut flakes.  I was fairly happy with how this turned out given the fact that I let this dough go a bit too far during bulk ferment--trying to cook dinner while keeping an eye on fermenting dough continues to trip me up here and there.  During pre-bake research, I did note that several people stated Kamut tends to ferment quickly...wish I had remembered that last night during the bulk.  It stuck to the banneton on one side, just a bit. Sigh...