Blog posts

This is my version of a “Sunburst” Bourbon Peach Melba Pie.

I know I’ve made this before but I wanted to see if my techniques have improved at all with more baking and for this dinner I wanted a simple sourdough without a lot of whole grain or other flavours added to the bread.

I used the Smoky Chili Sourdough recipe from Sarah Owens, but added 2 tbsp tomato paste and 180g of chocolate stout to replace some of the water content. The dough was great to work with. I got a bit distracted trying to work 2 recipes at once so I ended up shaping earlier than I had intended. I usually put the loaves right in the fridge after shaping, but because the bulk was on the short side I left the dough out for about 45 minutes before putting it in the fridge. Great oven spring although my attempts at new scoring methods were funky.

I tried to make Shiao-Ping's recipe for chocolate sourdough and I added walnuts and 160g chocolate stout to replace sone of the water. This recipe had a 37% starter % inoculation so I was really curious about how it would work. It smells amazing, but the oven spring was a little underwhelming. In the fridge, the dough kind of cracked which is something I hadn't experienced before.

My second bake of the Swiss Farmhouse Bread. This time I was able to source organic raisins and make the raisin yeast water successfully.  My first attempt at yeast water failed due to impurities on the raisins, so I resorted to making the yeast water using kumquats and honey.

This time I made the raisin yeast water using organic raisins and was successful. I also changed the container setup using an airlock lid and a cling film layer in contact with the water. I observed the development daily and on the sixth day, the bubbles were very active.

This is the recipe I use as my "Go to" for WW sandwich bread. The recipe belongs to Jani Boys but I added the Ground Flax seed as well as the vital gluten and dough enhancer (this gives my bread not only vitamin C but keeps my bread fresher on the countertop. This bread can be frozen for up to a month by putting a paper towel over the top of the cooled loaf then put into a large plastic bag like a gallon size Ziplock. 

SOFT 100% WHOLE WHEAT SANDWICH BREAD

It’s been quite a while since I posted except for the CB earlier this week.  I pulled my starter out of the fridge on Sunday and did one refresh. Then 9:15 pm mixed the levain

9 g starter + 44 g water + 44 g flour and left on the bench over night.

Monday am popped it in the microwave to warm up as room temp was only 12°C, brrrrr. once it was nice and bubbly mixed final dough

335 g bread flour + 6 g gluten flour

94 g Durum

60 g freshly milled whole wheat

37 g freshly milled spelt

360 g water.

Since I started working with white dough, I’ve come to recognize the importance of gluten development in bread. Whole grain dough tends to be stiffer even when fully hydrated, which gives a delusion that dough mixing is neglectable. Wrong. I was so wrong! Two rounds of 3 minute mixing and 1 set of lamination contributed enormous elasticity and extensibility. The dough felt completely different and it does show in the crumb.

30% Sprouted Sorghum SD

I used the Honey Spelt Oat recipe from Sourdough by Sarah Owens. I followed her ingredients exactly, except I swapped out the spelt for whole wheat. The loaves in her book are a little small for my liking, but given my poor prior attempts with this recipe, I was happy to make less dough.