Blog posts

Recently Andy posted on his Pain Au Levain with Light Rye.   http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/23199/pain-au-levain-light-rye-flour  His formula was quite similar to something I had tried awhile ago http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/22372/sourdough-white-rye with a major difference: the percentage of fermented flour, which was more than double what I had used (33.3% rather than 16%).   I decided to try Andy's approach.  I followed his directions with the fo

I was amazed how wheat germs enhanced bread flavor when I made David (dmsnyder)'s famous SFBI miche a couple of months ago. I liked it a lot that I wanted to try making more breads with wheat germs.

Well, I can be easily distracted with other baking projects, bread ideas, new books, etc. Now, two months later, I finally got the chance to make a plain sourdough with toasted wheat germs added. 

Ecco l'ultimo pane con Buratto (solo lievito naturale liquido). Il precedente è stato un clamoroso fallimento, si poteva mangiare ma ...

Here tha last loaf with Buratto flour (only liquid levain). The previous one was a failure, I mean you could eat that loaf but ...

I am very pleased with my oven spring and grigne and all that business, so here's a new blog post! This is a trifle underproofed, but I rather like the dramatic look of the thing.

 Poolish:

1. 1/2 cup medium rye flour
2. 1/2 cup bread flour
3. pinch of yeast

Let sit out overnight (8-12 hours, more if it's cooler, less if it's warmer)

Dough:

I made a loaf of SF Sourdough for an Easter brunch, following Peter Reinhart's recipe in his book Artisan Bread Every Day.  In the past I've had extremely good luck with Reinhart's SF  Sourdough recipe in his other book Crust and Crumb but my supply of "mother starter" was a bit low and the recipe in Artisan Bread Every Day only calls for two ounces while the one in Crust and Crumb asks for .  Besides, I've been wanting to try the recipe in Artisan Bread Every Day anyway.

Hello,
I tried making sourdough semolina this weekend, after getting some pointers and help from Franko (Thanks, Franko!).

I mixed up a batch of dough, enough to make 4 big loaves, and was happy to have this opportunity to practice scoring.



The scoring on the top loaf was on a whim, wanting to see how diamond scoring would look on a batard.

This is my second attempt at this recipe, my first attempt is HERE. I'am very content, as this is the best Pain Au levain i've baked so far. I've made changes to the Recipe and procedures as compared to the earlier attempt. The changes were:

1 - I increased the % of prefermented flour from 15% to around 20% (THANK YOU ANDY!)

2 - I was meticulous about the last 3 refreshments of the starter prior to building my levain (THANK YOU LARRY!)

These decorated sugar cookies were fun to make and flew away quickly after a lovely family Easter dinner.

                         Happy Easter, 

                               Sylvia

Happy with the oven spring here :) I've been struggling to get cuts I'm satisfied with the disposable razor blade on a stick idea, so I decided to find an old straight blade razor (think what a barber would have used years ago).. I found one and had much better results - I've often admired Della Fattoria's breads (rosemary lemon, in particular) and have wondered how they cut the designs in the top.  I find when I use the disposable blade on the stick - the edge of the blade occasionally get's caught when I'm making a cut and tears the bread slightly.

 Well, you know.

Although I went into some detail with my panned bread recipe (which has stabilized at my last published formula (or can get snazzed up with the addition of 12-15% each of toasted chopped walnuts and prunes) I've been working up other formulas and channeling Richard Blais - ever unhappy with my baguettes -  I have been tweaking formulas that others might call successful.

Last weekend things seemed to go well.