Friday was my first bake of the new year, and I tried my hand a BBA's Italian bread.
I mixed the biga Thursday afternoon, before heading of to the South Alabama basketball game (we lost, by 3, in OT), and put into the fridge during halftime in the BCS championship game ("Bama won, if you hadn't heard—Roll, Tide, Roll).
After several not-so-happy outcomes, and one pleasing outcome, it was obvious that I needed to get better acquainted with the South African flours that I have. Previous bakes seemed to indicate that the flours' absorbency was different than I was anticipating, based on my previous experience with U.S.-produced flours. The only way to find out what was going on with any certainty was to do side-by-side bakes of identical breads, adjusting only one variable (hydration, in this case) at a time so that I could compare the outcomes.
So I was inspired by a very eloquent baker to try my hand at the SJ Sourdough. We made our Vermont Cheddar and Broccoli soup also. I can't wait to cut in to the loaf tomorrow to see how it tastes.
Happy Baking to all!
Yesterday, I was reading about Ezio Marinato. He is a famous italian baker and teacher, one of the most representative member of the italian team at the "Couple du Monde the Boulangerie - Paris" (along with Piergiorgio Giorilli) and gold medal at the "Mondial du Pain, Goût et Nutrition - Lyon 2007".
He is also a baking consultant and I already knew him because of his work with Molino Quaglia and Farina Petra.
I've been reading David's many posts on his [url=http://www.thefreshloaf.com/user/dmsnyder] blog [/url] about San Joaquin Sourdough, a formula he developed that was inspired by a long bulk ferment [url=http://www.thefreshloaf.com/user/janedo] Janedo [/url] wrote about after a visit with Anis Bouabsa. David had tried enough variations of this formula I had to do some reading before I settled on the approach I was going to take for my first atte
A couple weeks ago, I made Greek bread (Horiatiko Psomi) for the first time (See: Greek Bread - I finally make it with my Greek daughter-in-law). I based it on this recipe, which my Greek daughter-in-law said seemed closest to the bread she had had in Greece. It was good, but I felt it could be improved. I had intended to make the bread with some durum flour, but forgot to use it.
I started last night with an experimental poolish, 1/8 tsp yeast 1 cup AP flour and 1 C water. This morning I added that to 5 C flour, 2 tsp yeast (proofed with sugar and 1 C water) and 1TBS salt. I mixed by hand and started kneading and after ten mins this is what I had:
So I posted it in the photos forum with a plea for help and figured out that I added a whole cup too much flour! It was a dry, dry dough, tearing when I pushed on it and not sticking to itself whatsoever.
As a parent of a 9 year old, I am attempting to teach him how to be self sufficient. This is my gift to him. He has been growing his own vegetable garden for two years now. Often giving extra vegetables to people camping in our campground. All soups are made from scratch at home. Tomorrow he will be learning how to make cheddar brocolli :) Meanwhile he and I are learning to bake our favorite breads at home. Last week he sat with me, watching videos about shaping baguettes and decided he was ready to try. I'm proud of
Hallelujah! I located rye flour today at a store within reasonable driving distance! And not just simply rye flour: I can get wholemeal rye, medium rye and crushed rye. Thanks MiniO for one of your tips; I went to the mill's web site, looked at their list of stockists (for the Americans, the equivalent would be retailers), and finally made it to the store today. For anyone else in the Pretoria (Tshwane) area, it is the SuperSpar store at the Silver Lakes shopping center, just off Hans Strijdom Drive.
