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When I first learned of genius entrepreneur Nathan Myhrvold's endeavor to create THE Ultimate Work on Bread Baking, pouring thousands of dollars in his state-of-the-art scientific laboratory plus baking station, I was rather skeptical. After Modernist Cuisine now molecular baking?

But a presentation last summer at the Kneading Conference in Skowhegan/ME, with stunning photos of the process, was so convincing that I overcame my doubts (and qualms about spending so much money), and ordered my copy at Amazon.

Having found the Polenta Pepita sourdough bread recipe on this site, I set about making the bread only to realize that the hubz had used the last of the Pepita seeds on his salad!
And so the recipe "evolved" into a new one!
Pepitas were replaced by pinenuts, and with the addition of two tablespoons of Pesto sauce what should have been a Mexican ingredients loaf, became an Italian ingredients loaf.
Since the Pesto is quite high in sodium I reduced the salt to just 15g.
The flavor and crumb are both great.

I feel like I should share a HK style bread recipe on this site as someone from HK so when my mom requested some coconut buns, I decided to make it immediately. This is a kind of very typical and popular enriched bread in HK and though I only crave it at very rare occasions, my mom adores it wholeheartedly. I modified the traditional recipe by nixing butter and decreasing sugar in the dough while adding sourdough and tang zhong for flavour and tenderness respectively. An egg is skipped in the filling and condensed milk replaced the sugar. 

Time for Easter so that means a fruit bread is “de rigueur”. I tweaked and adapted a version that I made for Canadian Thanksgiving back in October.

Makes 3 loaves

Levain

148 g bread flour (I used a combo of spelt bran and sifted flour as well as bread flour)

118 g water

30 g starter

Porridge

125 g large flake oats

25 g oat bran (combo of oat bran and spelt bran)

345 g water

75 g plain yogurt

Main dough

633 g unbleached flour

17 g vital wheat gluten

I’m recently on a Japanese kick which you may be able to tell after my recent bake of seaweed shio koji bagels. Miso’s always been one of my favorite condiments. I use them not only for roasting veggies and marinating all kinds of protein, but also for mixing up a savory salad dressing or tossing with pasta so needless to say, it’s my broth base of choice for ultra rich ramen. Incorporating miso into bread seems to be a pretty good idea so why not give it a go?

I have to admit, my love for sourdough and whole grain happened more recently, bagel is the one that stole my heart first. I love it for its chewy and doughy texture that’s much more satisfying than an airy slice of sandwich bread. It’s therefore not difficult to predict at all that I gradually switched from white sandwich bread to more hearty whole wheat bread and finally to whole grain sourdough. My love for bagels still lingers, though after all the flavorful whole grain sourdough, they might taste slightly less exciting.

I suppose that I know I am jaded.  I got some half decent bread at City Market in Houston for 5 weeks.  It said it was sourdough and it looked OK on the outside but it wasn’t like any sourdough that Lucy and I make at home.  It didn’t look the same on the inside.  But it wasn’t 25% sprouted 6 grains using a 10% bran levain made from a NMNF rye starter either.

Majority of the heavy work and projects for the mid of the semester were done, I just have to compile them in a portfolio so now I can relax and prepare for exams and do some heavier baking/cooking. Still, I can't function well during hectic times without making bread so for a forced "bake", I made a simple bread: steamed buns; can be cooked indoors in under 20 minutes. I made this about 2 weeks ago when our professors were mad giving projects after projects, just before going to class.

I saw someone post a Granola Sourdough which looked pretty good so I threw 60 grams of granola into my standard recipe to see how it would come out. I was pretty impressed as the granola added a good subtle flavor and texture which I really liked.... I will be experimenting more with this soon. 

450 grams strong white bread flour

50 grams wholewheat

100 grams starter

10 grams salt

60 grams granola

325 grams water

How about the Anglo-Italian fusion for Easter: a combination of hot cross buns and panettone? Yes, I know, there's the properly Italian colomba di pasqua and I've made it too, but my bunettones are just a bit of fun.

I used a sourdough starter but didn't go through the faff of lievito madre, getting up at four in the morning etc., like I did back at Christmas time. Not orthodox, but ordinary, lively 100% wheat sour starter seemed to work well.