Blog posts

For the longest time, provolone equaled provolone dolce to me. I use it as a sharper alternative to mozzarella. Only until recently, it’s aged cousin, provolone piccante was introduced to me. Oh what had I missed! Provolone piccante is true to its name: pungent, salty and just full of flavors. I’d even go as far as to compare it with 24-month Parmigiano Reggiano!

Provolone Piccante Fennel Seed SD with 30% Sprouted Kamut

An old west coast friend emailed me 2 days ago.  Her significant other was trying, without a lot of success, to make focaccia.  Did I have a recipe?  My last focaccia foray was probably in 2003 when I was a rank amateur home baker for a short time and  initially experimenting with Mr. Reinhart's BBA but years prior to the existence of TFL.

I make a lot of Hamelman 50%-whole-grain-with-a-soaker breads.  They often look quite similar but taste pretty different depending on the grains and soaker ingredients used.  This time was a pleasant surprise, as the depth of flavor is more than I hoped for.  The 28 hour cold final rise also helped with flavor development.

Grains:  6oz WW berries, 5 oz kamut, and 4 oz Øland landrace red wheat from Capay Mills, "a very rare wheat from Denmark, brought to the US by Claus Meyer, of NOMA fame," according to the owner, David Kaisel.

We keep real milk in the house during the winter, but during the summer, we switch to soy milk. (In the summer we like fruit smoothies, and soy milk makes a better smoothie.)

With soy milk and a little extra (peanut) oil, one can make a decent "American" whole wheat bread.  In the old days, I would have used a can of evaporated milk.  

When we are making a stollen from white flour, we make the dough, develop the gluten and then, only at the end do we mix in all the extra stuff – fruits, nuts, and whatever. If we included all that extra stuff in the initial mix, the gluten would not develop properly.

Whole wheat flour has a lot of extra stuff in it – stuff that can inhibit the proper development of gluten.

If the texture of ordinary 100% whole wheat is simply not acceptable to you or your loved ones, there is an arduous path to a fluffier loaf.

I was never, and am not now, a big fan of commercial whole wheat flour. Over the last couple of years, have become a huge fan of the whole wheat flours that I mill fresh.

I admit that there has been a long, and sometimes steep learning curve to producing whole grain breads that I really like. Much of that I attribute to the assumptions of the authors of most books on baking. In part that is because the authors think whatever professional bakers do, must be the best way to bake. However, bakers bake for their profit – not their customer’s health and well being. 

Our winter arrived very, very early and with a bang. Blizzard conditions in the alpine areas nearby and flash flooding and gale force winds at home. I packed a fire and spent the day baking. These came out of the oven first. A quick, one rise recipe. I took a few pictures immediately, because they are not going to last.

Recipe here: http://www.mymoroccanfood.com/home/2015/8/15/moroccan-semolina-bread-fig-and-tahini-pinwheel

Today I started an experiment to see if I can make a wheat-based (or mixed wheat and rye) version of Concentrated Lactic Acid Sourdough (CLAS). I wanted to see if I could get the flavor and acidification benefits of the CLAS without using as much rye flour in the mix.

My reasoning is that rye makes the dough more difficult to handle, and the 100% whole wheat breads I make are already quite challenging for me. Another way to say it is I wanted to be able to add more CLAS without adding (as much) more rye.

Also, I just thought it would be interesting to see if it works.

Earlier this week Abe sent to me a link of the just published Cinnamon Raisin Sour Dough on Maurizio Leo’s The Perfect Loaf.  In a move of unusual rapidity for me, I built a BBGA spreadsheet entry for the bread and concurrently fed my levain in preparation.

As is often the case in the alfanso household, I went rebel and turned his posted tapered batards into baguettes.  How unusual for me!  But I wasn’t finished there and made some changes to the whole process.  As follows:

I’ve been drooling over the beautiful breads that David has been producing with extended retardation and his description of “severely yummy” was very enticing. So I stayed true to his recipe and method aside from using strong bakers unbleached flour for all the white flour and adding 30 g of yogurt to tenderize the crust. The whole grain flours were freshly milled and I used Selkirk wheat berries for the whole-wheat. I did not sift out the bran as per my usual practice. The first batch was retarded 17 hours and the second batch a bit more than 18 hours.