Blog posts

Greeting fellow bakers and happy Canada Day to our Canadian friends and happy Presidents Day to my American friends!

Sorry for the repetition, but this P. Reinhart recipe has become my favourite sandwich loaf. I use a whole light rye starter and it is delicious sandwich bread!

I have baked this recipe in a loaf pan, free standing in the oven with the pizza stone but this time decided to try baking in a hot cast iron Dutch oven, 20 minutes covered and 20 minutes uncovered.

Having pretty much healed from a lost argument with my mandolin slicer, I decided it was time to make another attempt at the 5-grain loaf and put into practice the kind advice given by the great folks here. 

• I tried the 1-2-3 loaf starting with 100g of starter.
• I mixed it up but the dough would not come to together. 
• After about 4 hours I did 2 sets of 50 slap and folds. That seems to have improved it. 
• Did a preshaping and a shaping.

Last month I participated in the Community Bake for Hamelmans 5 grain sourdough bread. I made it 3 times because I was intrigued and pleased with the results. 

I found it was not a dough that it did not knead machine mixing. It benefited from putting some pepita seeds in the soaker, and an autolyse for the flours before adding the starter .

I really benefitted from all the information that others provided. I did not have a charming canine assistant but I did have paper towels. I used these to prevent icky sticky taps.

I'm a 100% wholegrain loaf nut. I don't really want to make anything else. And I regularly make goat's kefir at home, so when Abe told me about a loaf he'd made using whole Spelt and kefir, I was keen to have a go.

This is the 4th attempt and the best so far.

and orange zest with semi-sweet chocolate chips. I took bits and pieces from TFL posters Shaio Ping and Beatrice as well as Jay on Perfect Sourdough a Facebook bread blogging site. I used his formula with a major twist. I made the levain with AP and cocoa and YW . I added another 100g of YW to the dough . This was a very large batch of dough. A two hour autolyse with everything except add ins. One s&f and an hour later one lamination for add ins. That’s it. No shaping just folded the edges under this the gorgeous free form bursts. The crumb is open and tender and so rich.

My second loaf on TFL. This time, with an increased bulk ferment, slightly decreased inoculation, and, taking the advice of Alison Kay, increased salt.

Final Ingredients
   1.6 oz    Starter: 100%H Sourdough, Fed separately
   8.0 oz    Flour: Hard Red Wheat K.A.F.
   6.8 oz    Water: Cold, Filtered
   1-2 tsp  Salt: Fresh Cracked Sea Salt

Inspired by the Bourke Street Bakery’s Spiced Fruit recipe posted on this page: http://youcandoitathome.blogspot.com/2011/06/bourke-street-bakerys-spiced-fruit.html. I have baked this before but course, I have to change things up a bit by subbing out some of the raisins for cranberries and soaking the dried fruit in tea. I am also using a mixer now rather than slap and folds. 

Makes 3 loaves

 INGREDIENTS

770 g unbleached flour

So my baguette are looking nice and tasty. Crisp, blown and nicely colored top and with a nice brown bottom... however, the side of the baguettes is slighlty undercooked, the crust is really soft and does not get brown.

I leave a good 5cm between each 250gr baguettes.

Am I placing them too close to each other?

Their first egg was eaten by ravens and their 2nd one was eaten by a ring tail but hopefully they will pay more attention to their eggs from now on!  They are beautiful Bbids to watch.

https://www.azgfd.com/wildlife/viewing/webcamlist/baldeagle/baldeaglecam/