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When cold weather starts to settle in and hot soup returns to the menu baguettes are made to serve with it. I landed on TFL years ago searching for help with making  baguettes. This was around the time Jane Dough and David Snyder were developing the recipe from Bouabsa’s baguettes which were the current prize winner in Paris. This simple recipe has stuck with me ever since. The original recipe I still use is unchanged and far more reliable than any other method I tried previously. I saw the recent posts about baguettes 🥖 so I’m throwing my sticks on the pile. 

As a pastime I decided to bake a pizza bread after a recipe I found on a Swiss site (https://www.marcelpaa.com/rezepte/pizza-sauerteigbrot/). With a few small adjustments: a bit more tomato (sauce), less water, a little more mozzarella, and fried bacon instead of spicy salami.

Just after kneading:

Another bake using my middlings levain technique. The recipe and procedure were similar to my last bake. This one had 17.5% Millers Choice  + 4.5% barley + 3% rye grains, freshly milled.

welcome welcome,

Made some Vienna Bread today! Haven't made bread with milk or butter in a while. I halved this recipe again and had to ad-lib with some flour amounts. Kneading in the butter by hand reminded me of when I made puff pastry a few years back. Also, had my oven go to 450 this bake for the first time (I still prefer 425 as a max for the apartment).

I just made this bread for a Halloween party. It is not pumpkin flavored; it is a 50% whole wheat loaf, using the recipe by Maurizio Leo from his book, “The Perfect Loaf,” p.153. I pretty much followed his recipe using bread flour annd whole wheat flour and 2 grams of vital wheat gluten. I made the levain the day before and refrigerated it overnight to use the next day for baking. Leo likes to do a short levain fermentation on the same day of baking, but I prefer the method that I used. The bulk fermentation took about 5.25 hours in the proofer at 78°F.

I saw a recipe for a rose pizza sauce and followed that as an idea for this pizza with some changes.  I prefer prosciutto to genoa salami and added sautéed spinach for some extra colour.  I’m quite pleased with how this turned out.  The whipped ricotta was lovely, if I were to make it again I’d add lemon zest to the whipped ricotta to make it a bit more complex.

Belated Happy birthday,
Queen Margherita of Savoy (Margherita Maria Teresa Giovanna; 20 November 1851 – 4 January 1926)

Oh my . There’s so much going on here I think I channeled Ian! 😊🙏

Not too long ago I made Anko Mooncakes.  In making that, I made more Anko paste than I needed thinking that I’ll have a use for it eventually and it freezes well.  So as I do when I prepare a batch of mashed purple sweet potatoes, I froze 100 g portions of the anko paste in ziplock bags.  I always clean and reuse the ziplock bags as I don’t like single use plastic much.