Blog posts

      It's been a while since I made a porridge bread.  I love the moist and flavorful crumb I always get from these types of bakes.

I added some leftover mashed potatoes for some extra flavor and the ricotta cheese added even more moisture to the creamy crumb.

The end result was an extremely flavorful bread with a moderately open crumb.

Super-massive oven spring!

Based on a formula by Iginio Massari.

I was able to add extra water to the dough because the strength was so good.

Marriage's flour is excellent!

Recently I baked Abel's pain au Levain baguettes and included a Ziggy.  Which sadly didn't not spring open and grigne at me.  Wrong combination of too high a hydration and too much AP flour.  Well, can't have that.  

Across the board these have not been my most attractive bakes, but they've gotten the job done. It's also been interesting to try a lot of new recipes and to use some different flours as I'm now away from home and without my MockMill. I wanted to share the recipes I used in case anyone else is looking for some new recipes. 

We are all seeing how flour is harder to come by lately with the pandemic and everyone baking.  So, when I went to one of my go to places for organic flours here in Toronto I picked up more than I usually do including some Einkorn which I’ve never tasted or baked with on a whim.  I then found an instagram post of Kirsten’s Full Proof Baking that had some einkorn in it and decided to give it a go.

100% hydration levain - 1:1:1 6 hours @ 78ºF 

Levain need 97 g 100% hydration

40 g starter

40 g water

40 g whole wheat flour 

Just as well we have our starters!  

So my isolation bubble shrunk a week ago when Swiss family members could finally catch a flight home.  So I baked last week, an ok bake but I am having trouble getting decent oven spring.  This week I thought, ok try the other flour, a different supermarket brand that a friend had dropped off. Secondly, have yet another go at baking in my hooded BBQ.

So, Bread #1 - a simple mixed flour loaf with 14% kamut, 10% homemilled spelt and 10% home milled rye and 84% hydration.

My last blog entry was back in November 2019...right at the end of the world as we knew it.  This new way, this surreal reality with it's need for self-isolation, self-distancing, economic and social shut down under the ravages of a global pandemic is our present and our future until the hope of a vaccine/treatment is realized.  Everything is different, we struggle to adapt to the new world order and way of doing things in order to survive, fear and anxiety are the underlying emotions of the day, hope is the what keeps us going.

My kids keep telling me to "stop with the bread". I tell them I'm Italian and like carbs. They shrug and walk away...

I made Robertson's 70% whole wheat bread for us and two traditional Tartine loaves for family.  I'll have ours on Sunday for Easter dinner and provide the crumb shot then. Considering these were same day bakes (ie no overnight retard) I'm pleased with them. I suspect the one of the traditional loaves are a bit under-proofed but I'm not sure. I need to work on creating a sharper ear too..

A great read from Bill Buford, The New Yorker - https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/04/13/baking-bread-in-lyon

Not a bread, but something to do with it when you've baked too much! I stumbled on a nice recipe for panade from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall at The Guardian. This bread-based stew is a vegetarian favorite that I'd somehow never heard of. With extra sourdough baguettes lying around, no ideas for dinner, and a fortuitously-purchased head of cabbage in the fridge, panade seemed like the right thing to do.