Well in the UK we have been having an energy crisis, which has caused gas and electricity prices to go through the roof. Also the cost of flour and general groceries have increased no end. With that in mind and wanting to keep my kitchen monster alive I thought I would play around with smaller loaves and using my trusty Ninja air fryer.
Today's bake: Polish-Ukrianian Rye - Chleb Bezkidzki (Poland)
Source: The Rye Baker by Stanley Ginsberg
Note: Changed TDW from 1.374 kg to 2.0 kg.,used plant-based buttermilk.
Discussion:
I chanced upon some interesting YouTube videos of the JWU Bread Symposium 2021. One of them was a prebiotic bread by Michael Kalanty He uses a sourdough leavened soaker of home milled wheat grits, oats and flax seed to develop prebiotic bacteria.
It sounded interesting so I decided to give it a go and (painfully!) transcribed most of the recipe from the video and guessed a few missing bits.
It went something like this:
Prebiotic Bread Michael Kalanty
Description
Whole Wheat Sourdough
David Snyder
3/19/2023
Back in 2016, I was on a quest for a whole wheat sourdough bread I liked enough to want to bake often. I baked breads from a number of my favorite bread cookbooks, and none were bad. This bread was of my own formulation, and, as I recall, it was the one I liked the best. In spite of my good intentions at the time, I have not baked it again since. I think it just got forgotten. Flipping through my Sourdough Bread looseleaf recipe binder, I came across the formula and decided to make it again.
I’ve always loved the appearance of a fougasse but had never baked one. Since Mr. And Mrs. Alfanso are going to be our guests tonight and I know how Alan loves crust, I decided it was time to bake a fougasse. We love Kalamata olives so decided that my fougasse would have chopped Kalamata olives and oregano in it. I found this recipe in Maurizio Leo’s new book The Perfect Loaf and got it into a spreadsheet. I also made modifications to the method based on what I thought would work well.
We are hosting Alfanso (Alan) and Mrs. Alfanso tonight for dinner for the first time at our apartment here in Fort Lauderdale. I wanted to bake a nice sunny pie and had this one saved for sometime that I hadn’t made. I have seen both grapefruit and lemon lime variations of this pie in the past and since I had some limes still decided upon the lemon lime version. I believe one of the aspects of this pie that make it an Atlantic Beach pie is the choice of crust. I’ve seen both saltine and Ritz Cracker crusts for these pies and chose the Ritz Cracker version.
Although I’ve been baking quite a bit of bread down here in Florida, I hadn’t baked any sandwich bread in some weeks so we were out. I wanted to use up some of my King Arthur Whole Wheat flour, I had purchased a bag in the fall but haven’t used that much of it yet so decided to make a 100% WW sandwich loaf. For this bake of my Hokkaido milk bread I have increased the tangzhong to 20% and kept the hydration of it at 200% using milk of course. The rest of the formula was adjusted to keep the hydration and other ingredients the same.
Today's bake: GOST Borodinsky - Borodinskiy Chelb GOST (Russia)
Source: The Rye Baker by Stanley Ginsberg
Note: Changed TDW from 1.591kg to 2.784kg, replaced dark molasses for blackstrap molasses due to availability.
Discussion:
March 14 is Pie Day!
How I wish I used a π (3.14) design for the top crust. Really missed the opportunity there! :)
So I made some chicken pot pie with a local twist. The filling was made with jicama, mixed vegetables (carrots, corn, and peas), and celery with tender chicken chunks marinated in oyster sauce and fish sauce in a rich cream sauce.
I recently picked up a can of coconut milk at Trader Joe’s and wanted to try using it in a bread. I wish I had bought 2 cans so I could have made some Thai style soup to go with the bread.
I wasn’t expecting the coconut milk to be so solidified and had to microwave it for about 20 seconds and then stir it up so it became more liquid like.
