Blog posts

I learned that I absolutely can bake an 18" pizza utilizing an 18" pizza screen. Since the screen keeps the pie rigid, it can be placed directly on an oven rack or on a smaller ( in my case 16") pizza steel. With this revelation, I have reached the size cutoff point for the confines of my home oven. My sourdough crust is working very nicely this particular pie is a 24hr cold ferment. The dough was easy to stretch into an 18" skin and was not overly extendable. 10% of whole grain gives great flavor and a nice bite. Very nontraditional for Brooklyn style, but the wife gives it high marks.

Back again with more RWC sourdough.  Mostly the same process as I usually use, with a few changes.....  I built my levain using 50/50 AP/Rye instead of my usual WW.  Adjusted the amount of WW in the formula to keep that % about the same.  I used a mix of black and white sesame seeds to keep my loaf from sticking to the towel that lines my banneton.  Here are the details......

1000g AP flour

205g WW flour

240g Starter (100% hydration)

770g Water

26g Salt

This Rustic loaf is my regular weekly loaf and never misses if I am true to the process. I use instant yeast to make only one loaf at a time. That's what I like about Hamelman's book; you get the bakers per cent and I can rescale one 750 g loaf to suit my banneton. 

Process

This was made using King Arthur bread flour (12.5% gluten) and King Arthur whole wheat, and Marizio's process was followed modulo any discrepancies recorded in the notes below.

The porridge was much easier to incorporate than the first time because it was cooked more carefully and was therefore less stiff. The oats were cooked in a sealed pot, and were moist and surrounded by gelatinized starch, but any free water had been absorbed.

The porridge was incorporated at the same time as the salt.

Conclusion of this bake: sprouted black quinoa really tastes amazing. Seriously.

20% Sprouted Black Quinoa 30% Sprouted Spelt SD 

Dough flour (all freshly milled):

150g      50%       Whole spelt flour

90g        30%       Sprouted spelt flour

Please don't count me as pretentious. I truly do not have delusions of grandeur. However, I have a lot of fun putting my limited knowledge and experience to the test. When I spend hours thinking about a bake before the spatula ever hits the flour, it is like a vacation for my anxious mind. Believe it or not, even writing a halfway intelligent blog entry helps my mild anxiety. Enough about me, this morning I saw a very nice looking Turmeric sourdough Bread, at one of the bread making clubs on FB. The poster did not link or post a recipe.

There's something about oats in bread that I find compelling! Inspired by the community bake I made Maurizio's Oat Porridge bread. I followed the recipe as written other than to add 25 grams of raw honey to the dough (I just made one loaf). I baked it a bit too hot as I pre-heated the oven at 550 and didn't catch it until 10 minutes into the bake. That said, while the crust was a bit darker than I'd like, overall it turned out well.

Following up on my last blog post (from a while ago!), I've finally gotten around to making a 50% home-milled whole spelt sourdough, and I was very pleased with it. As has been my past experience with spelt breads, the bread tasted of whole grain, but less so than an equivalent 50% whole wheat loaf, and I find this milder taste more appealing.

As I do for most of my sourdough bakes, I generally followed dmsnyder's instructions for San Joaquin sourdough, albeit with different flours-- the aforementioned 50% whole spelt, and 50% high-gluten flour (Glicks brand).

I considered joining in on the community bake but looking through past ideas, I came across a bake that I had adapted from Mutant Space’s recipe. At the time, one of my friends said was one of the best breads she had ever tasted.