Blog posts

Not much to say, except I'm re hydrating my 2g of dried starter from 3(?) years ago. I've been feeling better and store bought bread prices have been going up. Almost $4 a loaf here for the basic stuff. I've got bubbles in my tiny starter which is half rye and half whole wheat. If anyone remembers, I was having water problems when trying to get it going the first time. So far I have only been using filtered water and no bottled, so my fingers are crossed this stays alive (it's hurricane season and people panic buy the bottled stuff).

I hadn’t made a pizza in half year so it was high time that we had pizza.  I decided to try baking another Capricciosa pizza (capocollo, mushrooms, olives artichokes and tomato sauce) and ensured that the mushrooms were pre-cooked so that they didn’t flood the pizza with their liquid during baking.  To that end I dry sautéed the mushrooms after slicing them in sixths until they were nicely browned.  The artichokes I allowed to drain in a sieve so that they didn’t too much liquid to the pizza.

Benny's 100% wholewheat Hokkaido recipe is the recipe that just keeps on giving, and I keep on seeing miraculous loaves coming from the oven even as the recipe is tweaked and stretched which really surprises someone like me who is used to the experience of failed experiments when things are pushed too far.

Really pleased to have finally produced a beautiful loaf worth sharing :) Recently I didn't have much time for baking, so most of the time just put stuff together randomly with no specific idea in mind. It was kind of the same this time, but worked out well.

Well batch 4 and I couldn’t be happier. Snap crackle pop! Gorgeous color crust and grine all along the slash. I’m using a single edge razor blade and being intentional instead of the fraidy cat I used to be. It’s also making sure to not let these loaves proof longer than 45 min.

We are going to a BBQ at a friend’s home and I wanted to bring something for dessert.  I’ve only made these types of sweet rolls a couple of times so thought I would make sweet rolls.  I’ve been baking with whole grains more and more so decided I’d make these at 50% stoneground organic whole wheat.  With even 50% whole wheat these should still be fluffy, shreddable and soft.  We love cardamom but I wanted to add another flavour, I’ve recently been using orange zest a lot and thought orange and cardamom should go well together.

July 30, 2022. 95th bake.

This has taken a lot practice to get to the point where

- The tops are evenly browned
- The canele itself is tall and statuesque (they easily collapse to runty dense loaves)
- The crumb is open throughout
- The crust is not too light and not too tough
- Etc etc

July 29, 2022.  94th bake.