Blog posts

I’m closing the year out by baking these baguettes.  I spent a good part of the summer and into fall learning how to bake baguettes with a ton of help from Alan, Don, Doc and Danny and I’d like to thank them for helping me to learn how to make these.  I doubt I would even have tried had it not been for their prodding and the Community Bake.

The details of my formula are In this link.

This week I followed David and baked this beautiful bread. It uses buttermilk in place of water other than for the levain. I made the levain two days before using it. This bread has a super soft crumb and notwithstanding the dark colour (from the buttermilk) the crust is delicate. The tang from the rye sour, buttermilk and long ferment make this (for me) an instant classic. It's truly a beautiful bread and worth trying.

I have been trying to make good broccoli cheddar soup for years. I was always disappointed with the results. FINALLY, the stars aligned and I had both an excellent broccoli cheddar soup AND great tasting and great looking bread bowls to boot.

Bread Bowl Ingredients

It's gonna be 2021 here in a few minutes and this is my mandatory yearend post. It has been a difficult time we have all been through. It changed our lives and left us in uncertainty but there is still that glimmer of hope. I wish all of us a better and blessed 2021.

Here is what I made today. 

I tried to mimic Abel's Roggenmischbrot which looks quite pretty.

Lately I have been concentrating on using up grains and flours stored in my freezer so for the last few weeks I have been making kibbled wheat, kibbled rye loaves. Still some kibbled wheat left but what else is there hiding in there.  Ah...

Ok, its been a while since I used that.  Starter was refreshed and levain built in two steps overnight and first thing in the morning.

As a kid, I was fascinated by dough troughs, and traditional baker’s technologies. I tried making some dough troughs out of wood, but I was never satisfied with my product. In the kitchens, I made do with stand mixers. Here, at the Tulip Patch, the mixer habit carried over, but I was still on the look out for a dough trough.

Dec. 30, 2020.

Goal: to add soluble and insoluble fiber to white (refined) bread flour with guar gum, psyllium powder, chia seed and flaxseed.

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A few days ago I did this by just throwing the ingredients together without measuring anything. I made a pita (flatbread) with it, and baked it in my toaster oven on a Lodge cast iron 9.25" serving griddle.

It came out surprisingly good.  So I decided to try again, measuring the ingredients this time so I can repeat it and share with others.

We made gingerbread from scratch. Cutting the design by hand for 9 people was a PAIN IN THE BUTT! I cut two fancy Church style houses and it took forever, so I decided for the other 7 houses I would simplify things, but it still took forever.

Unfortunately, everyone had so much fun making the houses, I am sure we will be doing the same thing next year, so I want to take some notes to hopefully make the process less painful next year. My wife says I will forget how much work it was a year from now, she is right.