Blog posts

I made French bread for the first time today, and it turned out great.  At least I think it turned out great; I have never had good French bread from a bakery.  The crumb was somewhat tighter than I would like, but the flavor was awesome.  The recipe calls for a total of 4-6 hours of rising at 70 degrees, but it was much, much warmer than that in the house this morning, and we were eating the bread for lunch by the time it should have been finishing its second rise.  The crust stayed nice and crisp, which was also a bonus.

Before going into the bread itself (which is simple enough), here is some background:

About a week ago the Jews had their Passover holiday. This holiday lasts for a week during which the religious and traditional Jews are not allowed to eat any bread that its dough was allowed to rise.

This is due to the Bible story of the Hebrew slaves running away from Egypt (the story with Moses – let my people go…). During this quick departure, they didn’t have the time to let their dough to rise and instead of bread they the Matza – bread of the poor – for their desert track.

Nice recipe for some one day buns for sandwiches, hot dogs, or burgers.   Adapted from a Beth Hensperger recipe.  I had just written out the recipe with instructions and deleted the whole thing ; /   So here goes again!

8 oz. Spring Water

1 Large Egg

4 TBsp. soft unsalted Butter

2 TBsp. Sugar or Honey

15 oz. Bread Flour with extra to adjust hydration if needed.  I used Gold Medal Bread Flour on sale here for less than 2 bucks a 5 lb. bag.

1/4 cup King Arthur dry Milk Powder

In his recent thread, Bagels From BBA, David (dmsnyder) responded affirmatively to my offer to post my sourdough bagel recipe. I’m very pleased to be able to repay him, just a little, for the many fantastic bread recipes of his I have baked over the past months. So here’s the recipe, and hope you like these bagels as much as I do, David!

I have decided to work my way though Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice. I have made my own challah for some years now but really rarely ventured into any other breads. There are many techniques that I need to perfect.  I have read though the first part of the book and today I started with Anadama Bread. I substituted honey for the molasses as I am not keen on the flavour. I need to buy myself another loaf tin. I only have one small one and the recipe make 2 loaves. I did the second one in a pyrex loaf dish.

The 'Stew' of the day:

Here Glasgow the weather is still wintery, Ok, today was abt 5hrs sun shine but yesterday abt 3hrs not rained out of the 24hr. Today I decided to use up some of my winter roots and some dried beans. About a week ago I brought some nice cannellini beans, even shape, nice shine, great texture and amazing taste. So I cooked this stew style dish and served with some of my leftover sourdough loaf, grated parmesan over it. I think its quite a nice dish if someobody likes beans as much as I do. And believe me I do love them.

Hello,

I would like to share my scones with you guys, hope some of yous get some inspiartions from it, as its quick, easy and great with a cuppa.

in the oven

cooling on wire rack

with jam and clotted cream

    This is the recipe I use for afternoon tea and cream tea scones.

Ingredients:

Fougasse is my favorite easy sourdough: I love the extra crust and the ease of pulling it apart. I made these with my version of Pierre Nury's and Zolablues Light rye: 65% hydration 5% rye, 20% levain (approximate) and 1.8% salt. The levain was kept in the fridge for a couple of days before I made this bread. Overnight retard following minimum stretching/folding. Rolled in poppy seeds and fennel seeds, brushed with olive oil, baked on stone 500/400 degrees F.

Wohooo,back from vacation and here now I can finally post about my two recent bakes.

Some of you witnessed the strange transformation the Hamelman Vermont SD w/increased whole grains took in my kitchen.Here is a synopsis with pictures:

- due to me being too frazzled to actually do the most sensible thing-using the metric large scale amounts to reduce to home size, I ended up with a way different percentage ratio.

Semolina [Durum] Bread and Sourdough Seed Bread.

I've been home-based all Easter weekend, so I decided on Thursday that I would make an inroad into the Hamelman Challenge set up by Brian: see http://thebreadchallenge.weebly.com/