Today was a much needed day off from work. I love the new job, but we're pushing out about 650# of dough per day with an average of 3.4 bakers, and as our production is increasing we're going from comfortably busy to close to overwhelmed.
Anyway, a day to sleep in and generally relax, and of course, do some baking.
This is a formula from “Bread” by Jeffrey Hamelman, a lot of people have made it with good results. I won't duplicate the formula here, see this link for a scaled down version, or better yet, get the book. A few notes:
1 I made the full recipe, got 2 huge 1.5lb breads;
I'm not too picky about flour. In general, I pick the lowest cost unbleached bread flour I can find (for what it's worth, this is almost always White Lilly High Protein Bread Flour, which runs about $0.50/pound). If I can find King Arthur Flour for a reasonable price, I will buy it. In my area, most stores have it for around $0.80/pound -- not too shabby.
Hello,
I must be a glutton for punishment. After six months of trying to improve my baguette making skills, I'm already raring to head off on a new "quest" after just one weekend of "free" baking. However, I can't decide between two possible quests, and I'm looking for some advice. Also, much like with Saturday Baguettes, I'll be posting my results regularly as a commitment mechanism, so if there are folks out there who would be more interested in reading about one or the other, that's important to me too.
Early Summer Baking:
Pain de Campagne with Mixed Leavens and Borodinsky in a Banneton
Apple Breakfast Cake
Austrian Easter bread, farmer's recipe
It is that time of the year again, where I can't wait for the taste of sweet bread with smoked meats, hardboiled eggs and
freshly grated horseraddish. It is very traditional to eat this kind of bread for the Easter holidays, some even put raisins
in it and there is a much softer almost no crumb version out there. Oddly everyone seems to fancy the contrast of
meat/radish/horseradish on a very sweet bread, but only for the holidays. It is a tradition,what can I say. My mom
