Blog posts

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

I’ve long wanted to try making steamed buns.  Char Siu Bao are a long time favourite of mine from my childhood.  Since I haven’t made anything like this before I decided that I’d make the plain buns first to test the recipe I found in a book called Mooncakes and Milk Bread.  These are IDY and I think I’ll try to convert them to sourdough eventually once I get the hang of the steaming and what to expect of the dough as it ferments.  I purchased a bamboo steamer in order to makes these.

I finally screwed up enough courage to attempt the Latgalian Rye from Stanley Ginsberg’s website. It’s a more complicated recipe with several steps at elevated temperature. But @Econprof, @Martadella, and @squattercity have all made some beautiful looking breads.