Blog posts

Had a craving for focaccia, realized I haven't made it since August. Just like last time, I simply followed Maurizio's recipe with minor time adjustments. I think my flour is a bit thirstier than his blend of AP and bread flour, so after some Rubaud mixing, slap&folds and stretch&folds was lovely and strong, could have made just a loaf of bread with it I think if I wanted to.

This is the link to my submission to the Community Bake - Semolina / Durum and similar grain bread.

Bake #1 - Semolina Bread - Hamelman

Community Bake - Semolina/Durum and similar grain breads | The Fresh Loaf

 Bake #2 - Durum Bread - Hamelman

Jan. 18, 2021.

The goals here are to continue to tweak bakes 30 and 31, soften the add-ins with a warm soaker, weigh more/all of the ingredients, and increase the total dough weight to better fit the 9" inner diameter lid of the combo cooker.

415 g total, Bob's Red Mill stone ground whole wheat.

189 g total King Arthur Bread flour: 34 in the starter, 155 in the final dough.

Total flour, not counting addins: 604 g.

% Whole wheat: 415 / 604 = 68.7%.

614 g total water: 191 g in warm soaker, 34 g in starter, 389 in final dough.

CB 1:

I found this 31-hour recipe on YouTube by Russ Brot, see links below.  I am very happy with the results, moist, loaded with deep rye flavor and relatively easy as long as you have the ability to regulate the various temperatures required at different stages.  The total dough weight is 2,400 grams (5.3 pounds) for two loaves.  I used one large 16” loaf pan.  Russ has many other great YouTube recipes, although many are in Russian.  The link below is for the English versions of his recipes via subtitles.  This recipe is the “Country Bread with Caraway”. 

Here you will find all five breads that I’m promoting for the current CB.  All of the “rules” and general instructions can be found in the CB.

============== the first three ===================

 

Hello! How about a bit of french pastry?

This is for the stray canele junkies who appear here on occasion.  We know that getting the tops to cook is a serious challenge. There is a lot of debate about how to mix batter, how to pour etc. I find the tops cook well only in a very thin heat range and require good timing on you temp drop.  For my setup its 440F on convection with the mounds directly on stone.  Then after 20 minutes a drop to 385 for another 35 minutes and Bob's yer uncle ;) 

Since Jeff Bozos took my malt off the shelves at whole foods I decided to resort to misting my loaves with the Maltiest think I could think of.  Yeah that's right, sticky goodness of Mickeys big mouth.  For the record my own little quirk when baking is to dissolve some barley malt in my spray bottle and lightly mist just prior shutting the door.  Makes for a nice glossy crust.  

Wanting to recover from my last two disasters of babka bakes and applying what I learned from them.  We do truly learn more from our disasters than our successes (thanks Dan).  I decided to try to use some Matcha powder I recently purchased and make a babka with a much drier filling that would avoid the pitfalls of soggy crumb.  I am adapting the same recipe for sourdough babka by Maurizio of theperfectloaf.com.