Blog posts

Hi all,

Today I had the pleasure (together with Susan, Sue, and Kurt) to attend a class given by Peter Reinhart in San Diego. It was a great class in which we learnt how to make some breads from Peter's new book.

Since I have Peter's new book, I already knew a lot of what he was presenting. Still, I got to taste and see some breads I would not have otherwise made; I got to meet Peter Reinhart; and I got to taste some properly made breads.

I am creating a new blog entry to discuss bwraith’s flour test results just to move it up as his original entry was getting old.  I admit we’re going overboard on this, but I find it all very interesting (no pictures- just discussion of flour test results) – so be warned!

Letters in my responses correspond to letters on bwraith’s test results.

I don’t know how to do that “quote thing” so I’ll just put bwraith’s original words in quotes when I want to respond to something directly.

Here are some multigrain buns from Bob's Red Mill Baking Book. They are easy and fast to make and very tasty. We try to use them anytime we have burgers, pulled pork(as shown) or any other sandwiches that are served on buns. (I know a fatty hamburger served on a multigrain bun may be counterintuitive, but every little bit helps doesn't it?) The only changes that I made are that I cut the recipe in half and I didn't have any millet flour, so I adjusted with bread flour. I also brushed them with water before they went into the oven and sprinkled with rolled oats.

bbd #07 with the theme flatbreads hosted by Petra Chili und Ciabatta . Deadline: March 1st, 2008

I once lived in Southern California in and around Los Angeles where Mexican bakeries abound. I once was in love with pan dulce (sweet bread) and it was abundant. I then picked up and moved to Northern California, to Humboldt County. Here, there are no Mexican bakeries and there is one place to get good mexican food, a taco truck, and the taco truck doesn't make pan dulce.

Happy weekend! I made baguettes for the first time in a long time today. BBA's poolish baguettes. One mistake...the recipe, er formula, calls for 7 oz. of poolish. I made half a recipe of poolish from the book, which is really more like 11 oz., and dumped it all into the final dough. ooooops. But what are you gonna do with 4 oz. of leftover poolish?

This dough gets 4 hours of fermentation and about an hour of proofing. The baguettes came out sorta pretty, I thought:

Uncooked Focaccia Dough with garlic, rosemary topping 

Baked, Whole Focaccia 

Leaning Tower of Focaccia...check out the crumb

I made these sesame-semolina flatbreads for this month's breadbakingday (theme: flatbreads). They are unleavened, extremely fast and easy. I was able to roll them very thin by using a pasta roller, the first time I used it for anything but pasta, and it worked very well. I will definitely use it again. Recipe here.

Susanfnp