Blog posts

I usually only have time to make our favourite sourdough each weekend, but this weekend we have had rain and cold winds which cancelled some plans.  So I decided to make a recipe I hadn't tried before -Golden Raisin Bread - from Jeffrey Hamelman's "Bread".  This took me out of my comfort zone somewhat but I enjoyed the challenge and will try to take on a new recipe regularly.  I think I've grown in confidence thanks to this site.

Tragedy struck last week - I stripped the worm gear in my mixer and while the part's on order, it's out of commission.  So today I was looking for a nice, simple by-hand bread recipe.  You know, because supposedly people do bread all the time without the benefit of mixers.  =)

I turned to [i]Savory Baking from the Mediterranean[/i] by Anissa Helou and found a recipe for French Country Bread that had only 3 ingredients - 4 if you count water-based ingredients:

Had some dough leftover from making pizza using Peter reinhart's recipe. Made a loaf of bread with it. Loaf was baked at 400 F for 25 mins and stayed in after the oven was turned off for 5 more mins. The crumb is airy, light, moist. The crust chewy.

Made these dinner rolls using the Hokkaido milky loaf recipe I blogged about here. The dough was, of course, made minus the sugar. Rolls were baked for 20 mins at 400F and then brushed with melted garlic butter and sprinkled with parmesan cheese. Both crust and crumb are very soft and moist when eaten warm. 

Semolina Sandwich Loaf from DL Local Breads.

Here's an example of another loaf using the same basic recipe as the ones below.  In this case, I used all white flour and added barely sprouted wheat berries which I ran through a mini food processor.  Turns out it won't be a favorite of mine, but that's okay.  I tried it.  (My fav, so far, is white flour with 25g rye or whole wheat and 2-3 Tablespoons of dry steel-cut oats thrown into the mix.)

75g firm starter

210g water

25g ww or rye flour

275g high-gluten flour (if using bread flour or AP, adjust the water)

1/2 ounce dried onions (soaked in hot water for a couple of hours, then drained; use the water drained from the onions as part of the water in the dough)

3 tbsp poppy seeds

6g salt

My order for K.A. Irish whole meal flour came today.  So I thought I would give it a try using my recipe posted earlier for Sylvia's Irish Soda Bread {I don't know how to do the link} to my blog!

When I was growing up in South Texas we had this neighbor who would, on Saturday afternoons, make her tortillas for the week.  Believe me, I made friends with her children so I could make myself available for tortilla day.  I think she enjoyed my enthusiasm and always had a few extra tortillas for me to take home. 

For the most part, I have had a lot of luck with bread recipes.  If it does not work out the way I want on the first try I begin the tweaking process.  It is not always fast but I get there in the end.  I say for the most part because I have had one bread nemesis.  One bread that, no matter how I tried, would never work out the way I wanted.  

That bread was the delicious Indian flat bread called naan.