Hey TFLers!  

I'm still getting over the jet lag, but I'm back from Poland.  As all of you in the UK know, March was unusually cold over there this year, so we saw a lot more snow and a lot fewer flowers than we expected. Still, we had a great trip.  

More to come! I'm thinking one (short) post in the next couple of days about travelling in Poland, another focused on the food there.  After that, I'm hoping to pick up the site migration/upgrade before my workload gets too heavy and maybe get us switched over by mid-month.  That may be too optimistic... we'll see.

Also, I thought I'd share a picture my first loaves since returning.  I just pulled these out of the oven:

These were using my sourdough starter, which rose like nuts! It was like an eager puppy that hasn't been played with for a couple of weeks. I didn't expect to be able to bake until this evening, but here there are.

What I saw of everyone's Easter baking looked great, BTW.    

Also, I need to update the homepage features.  Any recent posts folks want to highlight?  I'm trying to catch up on everything, but I've missed quite a bit, so let me know if there have been any particularly juicy ones.

Cheers,

-Floyd

I've been taking advantage of a flexible work schedule to set aside a chunk of time each week for my own "bread-ucation". Wanted to share a picture from one of the recent bake days; I was pretty happy with the results. Enjoy!

-Todd

Update:   A photographer and reporter from the local paper stopped by our meet-up.   Here is the link to the article.   In the print version we were the top front page story.  

On Saturday, we had our Boston Area TFL meet up.   Ten intrepid bakers plus family members broke bread together.   Lots of bread.   Lots of really amazing, delicious, and varied bread.    We all had a great time chatting, and each had a chance to describe their bread, show and tell, and so on.   Ian and I took a lot of pictures, so I'll let the pictures do the talking.   (Ian's are the wider ones.   I shrunk mine down.)

The scene

Kristen's Volkornbrot and Hotcross Buns,  Colin's scrumpy buns

Ian's guacamole loaf

Jong Yang's multi-seed sourdough

Mike's many breads

Barb's dinner rolls, Bill's bagels and baguettes

Varda's breads

Ian's corn feta

Barb's Jalapeno rolls

Kirsten's Volkornbrot

Kristijan's Levain

And not just bread:

Jong Yang's egg custard tarts

Mike's pastrami

Lisa's chocolate chip and raspberry bread

Kristijan's salt cod salad next to his Levain

And people too:

Bill, Ian, Kirsten

Vinni, Mike, Bob

Kristijan and Olga

Barb

Lisa

Me and bread

Jong Yang speaking

Kirsten

Colin, Bill, Kirsten

And stuff:

Jong Yang's homemade brotform next to Bob's Olive Rosemary Levain, Kristijan's Levain behind

Another Jong Yang wooden brotform

Jong Yang's homemade on top of stone steamers

Some of us brought starters to trade and smell

What else?   Probably more updates later and hopefully other attendees will chime in.

After picking up a large batch of assorted grains and seeds I set to making a multigrain spelt loaf. I firstly soaked a mixture of the grains (which I unfortunately did not weigh) and mixed into a dough of white spelt with 13% gluten flour for a total hydration of 75%. I also added a teaspoon of cocoa for a little colour. 

Although a little overproofed, resulting in no oven spring, this was pretty much the best loaf I have ever made in terms of the consistency of crumb and taste. 

hi folks these pictures were sent in by the students from the class that i assited with bread making at work see  previous blog "a great day baking at work 27 march"

5KG Hot Cross Bun Fruit dough

14 piece hand bun divider at the ready

A 5KG Fruit Bun Dough with 1 hour bulk fermentation ready to take this dough was made into cinnamon scrolls

and back to a picture of some of the hot cross buns

 A great time was had by all with 4 different doughs being made and processed, two 5 kg bun doughs a 4.5kg sour dough with black sesamee seeds and hand made dough on the bench

HOT CROSS BUN DOUGH

FLOUR               5,000g  100%

butter                       400g   8%

salt                             50g     1%

sugar                       800g     16%

brewad improver        25g  0.5%

mixed spice                100g  2%

milk powder               125g  2.5%

yeast dry                    200g    4%

eggs                             250g   5%

water                          3000ml 60%

fruit

sultannas                   1500g   30%

currants                      750g    15%

mixed peel                   100g   2%

total yield     12300g  (26%)   164 buns @ 80g ea

the timed dough was similar minus  bread improver and bun spice

Sour dough  black sesamee

flour 4.500 g flour

water 3,000ml

s/d culture 1,500g

salt 60g

sesamee oil 120ml

black sesamee seed 150g

we ended up with 18  x 500g loaves which were retarded and baked the next day

 Kind regards yozza

and thanks to the students for the pictures