Blog posts

The big lesson I learned here was that it just takes autolyse time for coarse ground home-milled whole wheat to absorb the water  and make gluten.

I let the 440 g of hard white  spring wheat, 220 g of Kamut, and 25 g coarse ground millet, autolyse for 3 hours. About 86% hydration. It was still a bit like wet sand after 3 hours.

Then folded in the 141 g of 100% hydration levain, but not salt.

Let sit 30 minutes, then one set of stretch and folds.

I recently discovered a blog called: Tavola Mediterranea - Home of Culinary Archaeology on the Web. It is a fascinating and very informative blog on ancient history and baking. Two breads on this site really caught my attention and had me heading into the kitchen. The Roman Panis Quadratus and a Greek Prosphora.

It has been a while between posts.  I've been busy with the new start-up I'm working for so have not had a lot of time to post anything.  I made this tasty bake a few weeks ago.

I had found a nice surprise of Farro berries at the new Whole Foods that opened and I'm really liking the nutty flavor.  The balance of the flour was KAF bread flour along with some ricotta to soften the crumb and plenty of tasty pecans and dried cherries that were re-hydrated in water.

 This is a popular loaf for Canadian Thanksgiving. 

I’m feeling more confident now with this sourdough recipe.  I’ve had pretty good success now that I’ve baked it a few times with the hydration lowered to 74% from about 78%.  This is Maurizio’s beginner sourdough recipe which fortunately we love the flavour of.  The only change this time was that I added 0.5% diastatic malt powder to the dough during the autolyse.

Back once more from roaming the earth and, within way less than a day home, my wife coaxed me into thinking about a next bake.  I left it to her imagination what would be next, but she deferred to me.  

In the past I'd baked the Hamelman black olive levain a few handful of times, particularly in response to our building's chief engineer's constant "whining" about when I'd bake it again and slip him a loaf.

Just saw a great article on the UK's Guardian about the perils of processed bread.

Here's my plan.  This is based on past loaves, where I've measured, and where I've not measured; but this is not an exact duplicate of anything past.  (SOTSOT = some o' this, some o' that.)

Started: Tue, Oct 15, 2019.

Goals: