Blog posts

This is my second bake of the Gallina Limoncello and white chocolate Colomba, by far the best of my four rounds of baking. I learned a lot during these bakes, all of which I will leverage going forward.

This recipe from Luigi Gallina is nicely balanced, relatively easy to work with and is also the most delicious of the ones I've tried. It makes a cloud-like and moist crumb which is also sturdy enough to stand up to being baked in Colomba format.

Posting a bit late - last weekend it was Purim, so I baked the traditional Hamantaschen and cinnamon rolls :) I think this year the Hamantaschen are the best ones yet.

Inspired by the Red Miso Furikake SD loaf by Benito and the Miso Light Rye Sourdough with Seaweed by txfarmer I tried the above Wakame and fermented tofu (Chao) 50% white spelt loaf.

Very interesting and satisfying bake. The ingredients were as follows:

I need a treat. (those usually involve flour and yeast in my house)  Deb Pearlman (Smitten Kitchen) posted a recipe for a cheater braided brioche with lemon curd and cream cheese (A la Danish) I'm tempted. But I don't do regular yeast...so will convert to starter - https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/55004/brioche-orange-blossom-water minus orange blossom water this time. 

Enjoy my finalized rendition of Ken Forkish's Pain de Campagne. 

My wife recently bought me a Traeger pellet smoker for my birthday and I decided to smoke a brisket for its maiden voyage. I needed a nice deli rye to make a killer smoked brisket sandwich and this bake didn’t disappoint!

Finally managed to make two vaguely comparable loaves, one using a 'shaggy' SD biga and the other, in effect, a SD poolish (not dissimilar to the liquid levain I was using in pre-biga bakes, minus the small regular feeds).

A few years ago, Dan Ayo posted here about his experience with using chocolate malted barley from the brew shop in a bread. It made a big difference to the colour of the bread and the flavour of it too.

Good result with this recipe, which includes a tangzhong. I used lemon essence instead of the larger volume of limoncello, and this worked well. 

Shaping:  I placed dough as one piece in the molds, rather than the traditional wings and body approach. I did this by laminating dough into a diamond shape and rolling it from left and right into the center. This created a batard-like shape, heavier in the center. When place in the mold, I gently reach underneath to spread the dough somewhat toward the wing edges. 

OMG! These dog treats smell like Amazeballs!

Hello, dog lovers! And sourdough bread people. Today I have some sourdough discard dog treats working.  The formula I referenced is from Food 52 " Sourdough Discard dog treats"

Enjoy the pictorial formula. I went off the reservation after bring the dough together. My process is listed with the photos. Stop back later, we will have Gronky taste test.

Two eggs are missing from the wet ingredients photo.