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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.

almost time for Easter breads/braids (not that it’s a thing in our house but I like playing with the bread calculator over at FoodGeek’s site - recipe here)

This was made with an overnight preferment instead of my usual TZ method. I’m gonna double the recipe for a wreath version next. Maybe with some eggs wedged into the dough like “Pane di Pasqua”. 

The lil swirls got smooshed!?

This started out as Eric’s Sourdough Deli Rye, but I started to worry about my KA mixer after I added the levain to the developed initial dough as is just wasn’t building any strength.  My KA mixer is a newish model with the plastic gears so I didn’t want to kill it just to bake this as a hearth loaf.  So I decided to make my first lean sandwich loaf.  I poured the dough (it was pretty loose) into the greased pullman pan, smoothed the top and placed it into the proofing box.  I baked it after it had risen to 1 cm below the rim of the pan.

Some of you maybe familiar with anko, but for those of you who aren’t it is a paste that is made from azuki beans and sweetened with sugar and is a popular component in many Asian desserts.  For this bread, I made a Koshian Anko (smooth anko) but a Tsubuan or chunky anko could be used as well.  If anyone is interested I can post the recipe for the anko.

Overnight levain build

14 g starter + 86 g cold water + 86 g bread flour left to ferment at 77ºF overnight.

For the Black sesame powder