Blog posts

People might rightly think ……Who would be making sprouted brioche buns for Christmas when they haven’t made Christmas cookies, fruit cake, panettone or even puff paste rugelach for Hanukkah?  I know it sounds weird but these are special buns for a special Christmas feast that folks from Kansas City don’t know as well as they should.

My last minute (and a first ever) attempt at pandoro: where are the raisins? :-) And of course baked in a totally unorthodox fashion in a panettone tin - didn't get hold of the star shaped one in time.

Good: no orange peel, dough doesn't ever want to collapse, divine toasted and buttered.

Bad: where are the raisins?

Happy Christmas to all the bakers!

I've been experimenting with using chia seeds in my regular "low hydration" sourdough. I tried incorporating them in three ways.

1. Pre-soak 2 tablespoons of chia in 8 tablespoons of water. "Dimple" into the pre-dough along with the levain/starter.

decided to make 3 batches of dough - and really pay attention to my gluten development and shaping.  Each batch was enough for 2 small loaves. I made Ru's butternut squash recipe again, my favourite multigrain and NW sourdoughs potato water SD.  I have made the multigrain recipe countless times but I reworked the recipe using the BBG spreadsheet. 

Finally, I took some time off from baking for customers (at least cut down my baking days) so I have time to do a few more things, like getting ready for Christmas. I figured this was a good time to try the no oven challenge.

I've been thinking of making a fig and walnut loaf for awhile and finally got around to trying it this week. It turned out very well and it's a formula I'd like to tinker with again.

Notes:

I have been working at using a higher hydration dough and went back to the basic country loaf recipe from Tartine Bread. The other day I was preparing to bake and made a leaven and left overnight. I did the drop test when I was ready to start making the dough and was disappointed that the leaven dropped a bit in the water. I decided to go ahead anyway to see what would happen. I let the flour and water plus leaven autolyse for approximately 4 hours, did a slightly longer bulk fermentation with 4 sets of folds every 30 minutes and 2 sets of folds every hour.

So I am a very busy college student, and like any other student, am in need of some $$$ to have on the side.   While I don't have much time for hobbies, I enjoy baking above all (of course, why else would I be here?!).  I am so glad to say that I have found a part time job at a bakery.  Our university has a dining service, which includes several cafeterias, restaurants, coffee shops as well as catering.  There is a central bakery that provides for these locations.  Here, I have learned so much.

Note to self:  Don't bake bread in your Weber Charcoal Grill when it's 25 degrees outside!

Since picking up those 20#s of semola rimacinata from Laurenzo's, I've been on a semolina baguette tear.  After baking a bunch of baguettes and batards for the Laurenzo's I've had a few more bakes.  Mostly out of want (wont?), or is that desire?  Dunno.  But I've moved the dial a bit.  Instead of my typical 350g - 375g baguettes, I bumped them up to be "gros baguettes" - big boys weighing in 100g heavier each.  So all of these weigh in at about 450g-475g.