Blog posts

The trip was a gift to our oldest grandson for his high school graduation--two years after the fact.  Yup, COVID got in the way of that, too.

Since it was Josh's trip, we built it around his interests.  Much fun and lots of great memories but bakeries didn't figure into the mix.  In spite of that, my wife and I were both blown away by the bakeries/patisseries that we did notice in our perambulations.  The creativity and craftsmanship of the bakers who turn out such beautiful loaves and pastries is beyond impressive.

This bread continues my adventures with rye bread, having done a couple of Borodinsky recipes as well as Lithuanian recipes.  The inspiration to give it a try came from the recent posting by alcophile, and I actually began this loaf before Benito posted his bake.  The process differs from almost anything else that I have baked and involves essentially a forty hour poolish followed by one hour for the final mixing, shaping, and proofing.

I baked this for the staff in our building as a Happy New Year present to them for all they do for us. Using once again my 50% WW SD Hokkaido Milk Bread dough as the base, I infused it with cardamom, cloves and orange zest. The filling has cardamom, cloves, cocoa powder, sugar, flour and chunks of dark chocolate. I have found that when the shaped dough is filled with spices and sugar that the hygroscopic effects of the sugar causes the layers to separate when baked. I now add flour in a 1:4 ratio to the sugar to counter this and so far it has worked well.

It's been a while since I posted but thought I would post this new bake.  Recipe from Emmanuel Hadjiandreou "Gutes Brot".  Not sure that I can print the recipe here.  I did scale his recipe down a little to give 1 x 700 gm loaf.

I didn't follow his methodology but rather just made the dough as I normally do.  Took a small amount of starter and refreshed 1:1:1 meaning to refresh again before bed.  I forgot so early yesterday morning I built it 1:3:3.

The farm I worked for this year sold at a farmers market in Atlanta at which a small bakery, Osono Bread, sold very good bread but, more importantly, top-notch cream-filled doughnuts.  I've been wanting to attempt something akin to them this whole year.  I finally got around to it for Christmas morning!

My first time trying this bake which Lance, Jeff, Martadella and Rob have been posting about.  Not being sure if I would like it or not since I haven’t like many of the previous 100% ryes breads I’ve baked, I decided to make a half sized loaf.  I also bought a fresh bag of Anita’s organic whole rye flour to ensure that the rye I used wasn’t starting to go off and alter the flavour.  The cracking appears to show a bit of under proofing, I did 50 mins of final proof but the dough was showing a good number of broken bubbles but not cracks at that point so I decided to bake it.

well. It's only been 10 years since I last posted something. Or maybe more. Let's post something nice?

This is a plain ol' sandwich loaf that I made. I used a preferment (a poolish by definition, I believe?) at roughly 40%, just because.

The loaf pan I used is a Pullman pan, and I used it covered. From the product description: "External Size: 8.5 x 4.75x 4.375 inch, Interior size: About 7.25 x 4 x 4.25inch"

I haven't used measuring cups in years - everything's in grams. Sorry. :P

Preferment:

250g King Arthur bread flour

250g water

Dear fellow bakers,

I thought I would share with you the results of my first attempt to make real, non-yeasted, panettone. I had made yeasted ones quite a few times before, and I thought it was time to make the real deal. I chose maestro Giorilli's formula that is available here: https://www.giorilli.com/ricette-item/panettone-con-uvetta-e-noci/

Deep-fried pizza until the crust is golden, topped with sauce, basil, and cheese, then baked in wood-fired oven to melt the cheese and crisp the crust even more. That is a pizza Montanara. The description doesn't even sound remotely Italian; it sounds as if it is something made-up but is not. It turns out that fried pizza is as old as a tradition or even older  in Naples than the classic Pizza Napoletana.

Today's bake: Valais Rye   Walliserbrot (Switzerland)

The Rye Baker by Stanley Ginsberg

This bread is made from a majority of  medium rye flour, some Rye (Meal - Coarse) and 100% Stone Ground Whole Wheat Flour and a bit of whole rye which is in the culture. The walnut pieces and sunflower seed, course rye meal add-ins provide a nice addition to the texture of the bread.

I'm using a large pullman pan (15-3/4 x 4 x 4)

This is my 9th attempt making this bread

Tasting Notes