Blog posts

I don't know if anyone else noticed, but today smiddlet posted the 1000th node on this site. Thank you, everyone who has contributed and made this site a useful place to visit. I continue to be slammed at work, which accounts for my inability to provide fresh content here. There has also been the spring cleaning, getting the garden going, family visits, hyperactive children, and a nasty outbreak of moths (clothes moths, not grain moths) in our house to keep me occupied. I am determined to bake and post new content again soon.

Hello. I am new to this and new to bread baking. Have been trying all types of recipes from several books but cannot seem to find out how to calculate adding oat groats and other types of grain to bread. Is there a ratio to follow? Do the grains need to be soaked first? Any assistance would be GREAT! Thank you in advance!

In addition to baking bread, I have another obsession: The ancient Asian game of Go. As the game is well over 3000 years old, a whole host of proverbs has grown up around it. One of my favorites is the following:

"Just one game," they said. That was yesterday.

Friday night, I may as well have said to myself,

"Just one loaf ...."

(Photos in the full post) I really didn't intend to bake all night. Really, I didn't. But I'd gotten home a bit early, and I knew it would be a busy weekend.

The sourdough starter recipe provided by SourdoLady worked wonderfully. Having had some less than satisfying results with previous sourdough attempts, I was unsure of what to expect with this starter. Since first mixing it up a couple of weeks ago, it has been bubbling happily and smelling deliciously tangy. Since orange juice was on hand, I used that instead of pineapple juice. It sounded peculiar when I first read it, but I'm happy to report that it proved itself (pun intended) this weekend.

Here's a tip to save that starter and take it with you or store it for another day when you need a break or don't want to throw it away. This comes from a dedicated group of Austrian Ladies who travel a lot and bake bread. Mix enough flour with the starter to form a stiff dough. Tear up into tiny pieces and squish between your thumb and finger to form thin small chips, let air dry, seal in glass jar or ziplocks. Send on holiday in a dark cool place. When needed add water to soak overnight and then feed to continue a new starter. Once started, it never has to stop....happy baking!

I had a few bars of chocolate in my fridge yesterday, so I decided to give dhedrick's Chocolate Chip Coffee Bread recipe a try. I really liked it!!! For me, it is the perfect bread to have with an afternoon cup of tea.

It was another weekend baking binge as I experimented with local herbs for my pesto ciabatta. I subscribe to Dan Lepard's philosophy to use local ingredients and there was really no way I can continue to use herbs imported from Europe. I experiment with a local herb called Laksa Leaf. It is so named as it is used mainly in this local dish. The flavor of the Ciabatta with the Laksa herb pesto was out of this world.

After a week full of "disaster breads", I am happy to report that I was *finally* able to produce a few loaves that didn't make me laugh when they came out of the oven :) So now I will post some photos as evidence so that when I create my next major flop or paperweight, I can come back and be inspired to try, try again... ***The final results of my baking day: - - ***One of the secrets to my newfound abilit

I didn't really intend to become a sourdough fanatic, but it seems that's what I make 80% of the time these days. The pound of SAF instant yeast I bought in February is only halfway gone, despite my having baked just about every weekend since then. Maybe it's because I've had a devil of a time getting my starter to get a decent "sour" and I've been obsessed with getting it right.

My parents were up from Atlanta this weekend, so with five folks in the house, I baked up a storm. We had pizza Friday night, poolish baguettes Saturday night, and on Sunday I baked five loaves: * Two panned loaves of whole-wheat sourdough. * Two loaves of potato, rosemary and roasted garlic sourdough (in the "fendu" shape) * One panned loaf of whole-grain and seed whole-wheat sourdough. Pictures below: The two loaves of whole-wheat with the multi-grain loaf in the center.