Blog posts

This is like the little black dress of cakes, although I think that technically it's more a quick bread than a cake. It's a French basic, typically taught by grandmothers to their grandkids. All measurements are done by volume, using a half-cup yogurt tub that is standard here. It's a nice change after you've cleaned up your bake and put the scales away.

Here's the basic recipe:

The dry

• 4 tubs flour*
• 2 tsp baking powder
• .5 tsp salt

The wet

I don't know if this would be considered a traditional scone - perhaps a variation on a traditional scone?  Scone purists might even consider it an aberration.  I served these to a nice group of women at a Spring tea event a few years ago and several commented on how much they enjoyed the "biscuits", reminded them of scones!  In my thinking scones are more crumbly, tender whereas a good biscuit is fluffy, almost flaky soft...both benefit from minimal handling and lots of butter.

A few months ago I posted my version of Abel Sierra’s Tritordeum baguettes, a result of which is posted in the lead photo.

Starting with CedarMountain

Unfortunately, I don't seem to have made any notes of the fermented soaker bake. Pretty sure that I used my basic 70% hydration, white (with 10% whole wheat) loaf, 25% rye starter at 100% hydration. Probably about 150g of oat soaker at a 1:2 ratio, with a handful of seeds for good measure. Also sifted out 12g of bran from the whole wheat and added that with 9g of water to the soaker.

I always enviously looked at posts on IG and here when I saw marbled loaves.

They remind me so much of baking "Marmorkuchen' with my Mum and evoke some of that feeling making it as a bread. I remembered a thread where Dan experimented with chocolate malt.

I could not get any so just used some dark roasted Barley malt instead with some cocoa nibs that I had in the larder and grounded. 

I have been baking terrible loaves lately. They were like more discs than loaves. I  decided to throw out time watching and feel the dough instead. Switched out the stainless steel pan for a cast iron skillet to generate all that steam. Abe was really encouraging with his pointers. I learned plenty from Trevor Wilson's Breadwerx and videos. And from Full Proof Baking (she has amazing hands) videos. 

I think I am almost there. 

Regular Bakers Percentage Recipe

Sourdough Bread: April 8, 2019

David Snyder

This is another hybrid bread. It differs from my last bake in the following ways:

1. I substituted a low-protein white whole wheat for the Turkey Red wheat used previously.

2. I decreased the total dough hydration to 72% because of the lower protein content of the flour mix. At the lower hydration level, the dough was still significantly slacker than the previous bake. It was also remarkably more extensible.

It is a bit less than a month till May the 5th but we will celebrate on May the 4th a Saturday instead.  That way folks that come into from out of town  can fly in in Friday after work and fly home on Sunday 

I live in a lake community called the Islands in Gilbert and there is a community park right next to the lake with Pavilions where we can stretch out,  I'm checking to see if we can have wine and beer outdoors or we will have to have it at my house next to the pool.  

It

I got to take a great class with Sarah Owens yesterday. I learned many new things. It was grand to hang out with other bread geeks for a few hours.

I keep making much to much starter and my fridge has been littered with glasses and jars of left over starter. I had one left to use up and this is what came out.  I had 100 grams of starter that hadn't been fed in a week and no plan. It kind of all worked out. I fed it 1:1:1 and then added another 600 g of water and 800g of unbleached bread flour as that's all I have in the house right now. Based on last week's bake and the impact oat bran had on creating a soft crumb I decided to add some steel cut oats to this bread.