Blog posts

Little experiment :

Flatbread with olive oil, hemp seeds, garlic, oregano and creamy cashew sauce 😋

I used Prairie Gold whole wheat white flour and refrigerated, unfed rye starter

400g whole grain white flour

290 g cold water

6g salt

20g old inactive rye starter

I made the dough at 7:30pm, kept something like 12 hours at 65°F, then about 5 hours in my oven with a light on. The dough was extremely soft and stretchy. Next time I plan to use more active starter and shorter fermentation time

The whole wheat was milled and sifted twice using my MockMill 200 and a #30 and #40 drum sifter.

 A date yeast water pizza crust with delayed fermentation from [here]

Mixed up a dough for pizza with 572 g of CM artisan bread flour, 411 g date and apple yeast water, 12 g salt, 20 g EVOO, and 10 g SD (as a hedge).  70 turns in the food processor + some Rubaud then in the fridge.  I'm curious how that will compare to the 3 g of yeast called for in BBA.

Another young vs ripe levain comparison for a desem culture maintained at 60 F.  At this time I was feeding 2x daily at roughly 5:3:5. This is a tortoise vs hare race.  The mature levains take an early lead, and the young levain eventually catches up with a sprint at the end. 

• mix 250 g flour at 66% hydration w/ 2% salt
• 90 turns in food processor total
• 20 turns to mix levains
• yellow: pH 4.55; 25:125  2% salt
• blue: pH 3.8; 25:125 2% salt

11:00 start

17:05: blue takes early lead

Occasionally I end up with small portions of the sames starter in various states and thought it would be useful to to document leveaning capability of the levain as a function of pH, given similar maintenance.

I have once again decided to document my bakes. I think I did not do this correctly a few moments ago, so here is a link to my last entry where I added my latest bake and explain what I did.  https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/57785/multigrain-loaf-la-dmsnyder

This is basically a repeat of last week's loaf with 50% wholegrain but with about 30% of the water replaced with sourwort. If your goal of getting an open crumb with sourwort then I would say you might be disappointed. As shown, the crumb is more and less the same with and without sourwort. Fortunately, that is not the reason I like sourwort, I was after it for some additional aromas and flavors and I think it did deliver which obviously not showable here. This is my first official baguette bake with sourwort so it is possible I still have not unlocked its potential.

I’ve made my country sourdough recipe numerous times in the past, but I’m always tinkering with my formulas. This time I employed both a stiff sweet levain (I didn’t want this bread to be sour) and I also added an egg. The addition of the egg is said to improve oven spring and may help with achieving a thinner crispier crust given the additional fat.

English Muffin Toasting Bread

I was asked by a friend...
"How about making an English Muffin Bread?"

"Not sure.  I've never made English Muffins."

"No.  An English Muffin Bread.  It's good for toast."

"Hmmm...  Never heard of it.  Let me do some digging and get back to you."