Blog posts

Since I've never really been satisfied with my Ciabatta, I tried to do it in a more conservative way. I only used a 75% hydration dough, so the lower end of the Ciabatta range. Instead of doing the stretch & fold directly in the bowl with wet hands, I did it on the floured work surface, which took a little more time. I carefully followed the principle of the dough having an axis with two poles (the smooth side and the sticky side). The result was a dough that was so strong that I couldn't even really stretch it in order to cut out the pieces.

I have discovered why my breads were bland - I WASN'T BAKING THEM! That sounds silly, but I am a newbie and my understanding was - put it in the hot oven, bake for X minutes and then take out. WRONG NEWBIE BREATH! (LOL! I miss Johnny Carson.)

The idea I was missing was that I am baking a cake - that requires two parts:

I make English Muffins from time to time. Here's my latest, and some discussion.

First: I made English Muffins with dough, not batter. Usually, I use sourdough. Second: I consider english muffins to be a cooking technique (cook on a hot, dry iron skillet dusted with cornmeal) and not really a recipe. You can use pretty much any dough you like, as near as I can tell.

Finally, I got over my procrastination of making baguettes and got on with making one.

My first attempt wasn't great and wasn't too bad either. There are things that I've learnt and will take them to my next bake. There were no issues with the taste and the dough strengths and extensibility. 

The issues I had with this bake were scoring, underestimation of the baguette size when it's fully-proof (i.e. it extended beyond my baking tray), baguette transfer from couche to baking tray.

I was so inspired by Pamela's 'xiapete' post on the ZaZu resturants style Chanterelle mushroom and goat cheese pizza, she baked in Nov. of 09, I've been craving one ever since.  I finally found some lovely Chanterelle mushrooms.  I also baked a pizza Margarita style.  It was served with a lovely little organic chicken, I stuffed with fresh garlic, rosemary, lemon, s&p. and, some roasted peppers!  Roasted it all at the oven door while the fire was getting ready for the pizza's.

I do bake by hand but as I work nearly 50 hours a week,I sometimes have to resort to a machine - what are your experiences??On my way out to work this morning, I put a ciabatta style loaf on to cook.It's a great recipe which I'm willing to share if anyone is interested.Love putting the machine on timer overnight and waking up to the smell of fresh baked bread

I've baked several things during the last weeks and I really wanted to post some pictures here, but first I had a foodborne infection from bad olives, then my camera went to die. I hope I will be able to post more regularly during the next weeks.

[size=20]Work in progress: rolls[/size]

My old bread site, joesbread.com, is now down. I tried making bread and failed to get any real flavor into the loaf. I restarted making bread and am now trying to capture that amazing flavor which escaped me on my first try. Perhaps this will be the time and I can start astounding people with wonderful tasting bread.

I was inspired by those trying to improve the grigne on their bread by using metal bowls or aluminum baking tins to cover their loaves.  Since I was doing a batch of "local rye", I thought I'd give it a try myself.