Blog posts

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 Or: My Adventures at the Back Home Bakery.

 They all told me I was too old to start in any kind of professional baking.  "My teacher" said it.  Even the organizers of La Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie tell me I am too old to be eligible to compete (Oh, and I don't bake that well...)

 They were right.

I am only slowly progressing with Reinhart's Crust and Crumb, 'master formulas for serious breadbaking'. The universal rustic bread is now 'under control', I did add a bit more salt then the recipe mentions. After a first test, I did score the dough a bit (just a slice down the middle), it just does look better this way. The biga does notably contribute to the taste.

  I recently rewatched an old King Arthur baking DVD and thought, well, why not try it.  It was revelatory.  I had gone over to weighing everything (a la Peter Reinhart) and using my Kitchen Aid (a Christmas present four years ago from my son).  In the vid, Michael Dubinski measured all but the flour (OK, so he used cups).  He brought the mixture from liquid to dough manually, adding only as much flour as was needed.  i tried this and rediscovered why I started baking some 5 years ago (I'm an old, slow learner).  What joy, watching ingredi

Here is a picture of my jury-rigged cloche. Not pretty but it works quite well.

It is a La Creuset round dutch oven (enameled cast-iron, I'm not sure the size) over a Sassafras "Deep Dish Pizza and Pie Baker" (ceramic), upside-down. Someone gave me this as a gift years ago and I've hardly used it until now as I'm not a deep dish pizza fan and can't imagine baking a pie in that thing.

Hansjoakim recently showed us a Flax Seed Rye Bread he baked from a formula Jeffrey Hamelman published in Modern Baking in March, 2009.

After nearly 4 years of gluten free sourdough experimentation and observation I can now intuitively work with the never ending variations that emerge during the sourdough process. Much like people, every gluten free sourdough starter is unique. They respond to temperature, humidity, air flow, and miniscule differences in measurements.

Lately, I’ve become so adept at this kind of baking that I can “correct’ the starter or bread dough as I move through the tasks rather than dutifully following the recipe and ending up with a brick.

Fall has arrived.  It's been a gloomy, drizzly few days in SW Ohio.  I should really go out and finish preparing the garden for the long winter ahead. Something's holding me back, though.  Maybe I'm avoiding the feeling of melancholy that comes with pulling the last tomato plant off the ground.  No more sweltering hot days, busy bees, giant zucchinis, crisp green beans, sweet eggplants;  no more grilled Pizza Margheritas, kabobs, and sipping mojitos in the patio...  In the end, I think what I really try to deny but can't is the stark parallel that the

Thanks to both Mr. DiMuzio and bblearner's input, I made my first pain de mie successfully.   This loaf was made with 20% pre-ferment maintained at 50% hydration. To add a bit of Japanese touch to the loaf,  3% flour and 17% water was used to make water roux starter. Honey was used in place of sugar.  The rest were milk, milk powder, butter and etc., pretty typical ingredients.

Here are some of the breads baked over the last couple of weeks:

First is a pain au levain with whole-wheat (p. 160 in "Bread"):

The original formula is great and it's a very nice dough for practicing folding, shaping and different slashes. It's a pleasure to see the cuts open up and bloom during oven spring, and the subtle flavour works well with just about anything. One of my all-time favourite loaves that I keep making often!