Blog posts

My Valentine present, which had been back-ordered, showed up while I was out of town last week: the KAF Whole Grain Baking book.  My, oh my, oh my!  There is some serious baking to do!  Since our grandson is staying with us for part of his spring break and since he loves cinnamon toast for breakfast, I decided to start last evening with the honey oatmeal bread recipe, which has a cinnamon swirl option.  It contains honey and oatmeal, natch, as well as whole wheat flour, unbleached AP flour, butter and other good things.  I didn't have any nonfat dry milk o

And I have forgotten how to make bread.

Not only has life gotten so much more busy with the onset of school, new friendships to maintain and entertain, but I just cant get it right!

My bread is heavy, moist or dry (just depends) and even though it rises when being ferments or proofed, it doesnt do much in the oven. It is crubmly although it has that elastic bread feel.

It is just so dense. *frustrated look*

Quite often,my loaves will rise unevenly in the oan and break open along one side of the loaf.

I've tried changing from dark to light colored pans,adjusted the moisture,adjusted the amount of

yeast,changed the oven temp,etc. but it still happens. Any thoughts from anyone out there? 

I am new to bread making... But managed to whip up these rolls. The recipe for the dough is from BBA.

Interior:

The recipe is here

***Edited Link***

My sourdough techniques have really come a long way. This weekend's loaf was far and away the best I've made. Delicious, sour, great crumb and texture, it had it all. I used about 25% whole wheat flour.

So what's for dinner? Turkey bacon lightly fried in a skillet then put on top of tangy Greek grilling cheese on my fresh sourdough. The whole sandwich goes back on the skillet and a hot cast iron skillet is put on top to press it down. Some green beans lightly sautee'd with garlic and extra virgin olive oil, and some garlic dill pickles to round it out.

I had one of the nicer Saturdays in a while this past weekend (thanks to a trip to Trader Joe's and the local Farmers' Market), and I followed it up by baking the pain au lait I prepared on Friday night into cream cheese snails and pain aux raisins.

Couple of things:

I baked three loaves of sourdough yesterday. The dough was lower hydration than I typically do, but they turned out real nice.

I also made pita bread for lunch. The kids loved rolling them out and eating them. I have to remember to make them more often.

I figured I'd start this blog to track my bread-making and encourage constructive criticism so that I can improve my bread-making skills. Feedback is welcome.

Made some pizza last night.  It finally got over 50 degrees here and for whatever reason I was in a major pizza mood! 

Made this dough with flax meal added to it.  Nice stuff.  I baked it on my Lodge cast iron griddle that preheated in my oven for an hour at 550 degrees.  That's why the pizzas are a little odd shaped.  but mmmm, so tasty.  Also, some ciabatta's from a couple weeks ago.  

Bacon Bread

This is a variation of the Bread with Olives recipe. The whole recipe is reproduced here (including identical steps), so you don't have to go back and forth between both of them.

I'm baking this one tonight, so I'll make a nice braid and post the photo later.

Here's the link to the recipe.