Blog posts

I had the pleasure of spending a week working as a baking intern for Mark Sinclair at his The Back Home Bakery in Kalispell, Montana.  Other than the sleep deprivation, it was a thoroughly enjoyable week of measuring ingredients, washing dishes, mixing bigas and doughs, washing dishes, stretching and folding dough, washing dishes, pre-shaping and shaping loaves, washing dishes, making pastries and fillings, washing dishes, scraping the workbench, washing dishes, packaging the finished breads/pastries, building friendships with Mark and Sharon (his wife), and washing dishes.

as promised a picture of the proofing baskets 'in progres'. I fill them up for about two thirds, then let it rise (in about two hours) before I put them in the oven.



Scoring about 30 minutes before they go in the oven. you can see that the direction of the cut has quite an influence on the final shape.

Well, I have officially baked my first loaf of bread.

I used the recipe in Lesson two here on TFL, substituting a cup of whole wheat flour for the bread flour. It was a thick-crusted, brown bread with holes about the size found in store-bought sandwhich bread. I would post a picture, but, uh, we kinda ate it all before I could take one!

I have a new oven that I used for the first time this past weekend for baking.  I did french baguettes following Reinhart's recipe.  They turned out "OK" but I am not sure what I need to adjust.  They failed to get the nice golden brown color to them, although they were the perfect temp inside.  I did the steam method once first in the oven and followed all steps accordingly.  I am ready to do some sourdough tonight but would like some input. 

Background

When I first saw the twisted shaped baguettes posted by Shiao-Ping on her blog, I was intrigued. Then I read the posting by Chouette22 on the Pain Paillasse by Aime Pouly and found out that it is an Artisanal Bread made in Switzerland, I was fascinated and wanted to know more about the man and his breads. I purchased Pouly's book 'Le Pain' and studied it thoroughly.

I hope everyone had a relaxing and fun Labor Day weekend!  I had just picked up some fresh peaches, raspberries and blueberries so I decided to make a favorite deep dish rustic pie of mine with all three fruits for after the bar b que.  This was one loaded pie 4 large peaches a cup each of raspberries and blueberries, this combination of fruits makes the most delicious pie.  Not overly sweet and a half butter half crisco very tender crust.  My husband ate 2 large slices.  His comment was 'Ohhh the flavor'.

One of my favorite bread is the "Basler Brot" or bread of Basel. It is a Swiss cantonal bread and as I was born in Basel of course I favor this over other cantonal breads like the bread of St. Gall, or of the Ticino. An exception is the rye bread from the Valais, the Walliser Brot, as I spent the other half of my younger years in this region.

If you belief the history than this bread was the first time mentioned in 1792 in a bread book. And still as of today it is the runner in many bakeries in Switzerland.

Well, I'm new - if you can't tell. I just found this page and was absolutely impressed at how much it helped me start expanding my cooking abilities into baking - which has always been a favorite of mine. I'm a 20 year old college junior studying historical interpretation - which has nothing to do with cooking - but I've always enjoyed throwing random things in a pan or pot and seeing what happens when put to heat and stirred.

I came back to Brisbane to the first day of spring (1st September).  I had neglected my back yard garden for over a month.  There had been very good rain going into winter after a prolonged drought and no name flowers are sprouting every where.  Even my one and only lemon tree is loaded with clusters of dainty little pink and white flowers.  Any my wisteria!  It welcomes me back with such vivid purple (or blue):

I have to confess that I'm not very busy these days. I've got a lot of free time because university hasn't started yet and in addition to that, I'm very limited in what I do because I've got some weird inflammations in my feet. And my friends are all working or have already started school or . . .