Blog posts

The Community Bake posting can be found here

Perhaps to stimulate some thoughts about what you wish to try, here are five breads I’ve recently baked and which ventured into my own no comfort zone.  Keep in mind that this is my personal version of this CB, and merely here to give examples of what took me out of my own personal comfort zone.   If it provides some ideas for you, all the better.

but I made this in a 8” square pan. 

slight adjustments to Maurizio’s recipe

Posted my first experience with the Kingdom Bakery Ciabatta the other day, and was pleased with the results, but tinker I must.

Changes this time employed a trifecta of pro baker's techniques, starting with the Kingdom mixing and BF, followed by the Ciril Hitz method of divide, and then the Scott MeGee method of shaping. 

The final three folds were performed on a watered bench-top with no flour. And I ensured that after each fold I returned the dough to the vessel seam side down.  

My grain source is undergoing some changes and is temporarily closed so I'm running really low on supplies (other than rye). I am breaking more intuitively these days since I'm short on time, but the bread is about 35% rye, 5% whole wheat, and 5% whole spelt. The remainder is KABF. 2% salt, 20% rye levain, and 6 hour bulk around 70 degrees followed by overnight in the fridge. 

I've been tweaking this recipe a little each bake and narrowing it down to a method that works for me.  Have tried it as sourdough, but I like it better with raisin yeast water.  The toasted buckwheat really comes through, and I've slowly reduced the amount so it doesn't overpower everything else.  Have tried it as both a hearth loaf and a pan loaf, but it's really working better for me as a pan so far.  It's hard to keep good strength with the non gluten flours and the inclusions, so the hearth loaves tend to flatten more than rise.  Today, I tried Dan's loaf pan m

 My daughter noticed a local bakery use this mix of spice in their bread and asked me to make something similar. When I researched this particular mix, I discovered that it was called German Bread spice. So I tweaked the grains in one of my favourite porridge bread recipes (I’m all about porridge bread these days... Thank you to Ian for convincing me!) and tossed in these spices. 

Recipe 

Makes 3 loaves

German Spice Mixture

(Procedure in recipe)

1/2 tsp anise seed

1/2 tsp fennel seed

Sourdough Sunday! So pleased with this bake, my ideal crumb!!!

Recipe:

70g Whole Wheat Flour

280g Strong Bread Flour

270g Water

70g Starter(100% Hydration))

7g Salt

Mixed all ingredients in a mixer until gluten is developed, took about 10 minutes in total at medium to high speed

Getting ready for our camping adventure over Easter with family. Baked these Hamelman's Traditional English Hot Cross Buns today. I may have to bake another lot. These are 75-gram dough each; formula below.

I took another shot at Vermont Sourdough today.  After my attempt a couple weeks ago, I wanted to see if the tweaks I made to my starter maintenance would speed up the bulk ferment.  Ironically, I think it actually went slower.

Overall, can't complain.  Got decent oven spring, a nice color and crispiness to the crust, and the aroma is pleasant with just a bit of tang.  I think it will taste good.  Was shooting for my typical sandwich loaf type crumb, and will see tomorrow if I hit that. 

March 20, 2021.