Blog posts

So I wanted to make a batch of Black Canyon sourdough last night, to repay my neighbor for the 2 lbs of fresh-caught cod he gave us. No mise en place. Pretty distracted after work etc. But in I plunged, only to come up about 1.5 C short of All-Purpose flour. Doh! So I used a combo of spelt, oat and White Whole Wheat bread flour from Whole Foods. It took about 45-50 minutes of vigorous kneading by hand to get any structure and windowpane.

I made a pizza last week, that turned out very good.  I addapted the recipe from hamelman's BREAD. I made a stiff levain instead of biga, and omit the oil. I used canned tomatoes made by me last summer, fresh mozzarella, dried oregano, and fresh basil added in the end. I put the stone at the lowest level in my gas oven, and the pizza was done in 7-8 minutes. It's the best I can do at home. The crust was absolutely delicious!!!

I have been going through a bit of a baking drought lately, but on Friday lunch refreshed my starter so that I could bake when I got off work in the evening.  I hadn't planned on anything, but when I got home and found the starter at its peak, I had to act quickly and there was no time for elaborate planning.  Accordingly, I just ad libbed and this is what I did.  

100g mature starter @ 100% hydration

250g water

3g diastatic malt

50g rye flour

Here’s my favorite variation on my favorite bread--the Basic Country Bread from Tartine Bread.   Since it’s now my most frequent bake, I figured I should write up my procedure both for my own reference and the breadblogosphere.

This weekend, I decided to  bake a sweet bread to serve as dessert for our father's day family gathering.  I ho and hummed for a few days over what to bake and finally decided on Reinhart's Chocolate Cinnamon Babka bread from ABED.  What's not to love about sweet dough, chocolate, and cinnamon, right?  Then I thought, "Wouldn't chocolate, cinnamon, AND hazelnuts be even more to love?"  So, that's what I did...  After rolling out the dough, I spread a thin layer of Nutella, sprinkled with the chocolate cinnamon paste, and then sprinkled again with chopped hazeln

Ingredients:

We've been traveling a lot the past few months, and I haven't had many weekends at home to bake. Now, we'll be home for a few weeks, and I can bake more regularly. This weekend, I baked two of my current favorites – the SFBI Miche and Hamelman's Pain au Levain. (See: Miche from SFBI Artisan II - 2 kg. The formula for the Pain au Levain is found in Hamelman's "Bread.")

Oops - another failure

I was trying to make Daisy's Wholemeal Lemon Sourdough (original successful recipe here)

Not sure what particularly went wrong - my assumption is that
a) I left the preferment too long
b) I used slightly unripe starter
c) I left the mixed dough too long for bulk ferment
d) the S&F method didn't work so well for wholewheat as for white
e) I didn't knead enough
f) the gods were not smiling :-)

Double Pains de Campagne, Olive Levain and a “Hardcore Borodinsky”

One large Boule, proved in a banneton, of just over 1300g, and one of 700g, proved in a brotform.

My croissant project is coming along nicely. I have been practicing on croissant/laminated dough for the past couple of months. The results are getting more consistent and predictable.

I usually make the laminated dough and shape few of them into croissants and the rest to something else (for change and variety). This week I made whole wheat laminated dough and made them into chocolate croissant.