dabrownman's blog

to catch up on. First off I got a new SD starter going using sourdoughlady's technique.  I used minneola juice instead of pineapple since I have citrus in the back yard. Here it is in the middle of the Minneola / Apple Yeast waters teketeke helped me get started .

Here is a photo of 3 of the breads I did the past couple of weeks.  David Snyders' SFSD, Pierre Nury's Rustic Light Rye inspired by Zola Blue and my non clotched multi grain challah.  I also did a clotched version of the multi and a very nice yeast water Semolina.

A batch of chocolate chip cookies for the wife to take to her conference in Flagstaff and a small batch of 6P jam (pomegranate, prickly pear, plum, pineapple and red pear)

Racked off the latest wine vinegar the mother made.  You might see her on teh bottom?

Picked the last of the tomatoes from last year's spring plants, never had them this late before and saw the first volunteer daisy blooming too.

picked this year's Meyer lemons to make Limonchello Del Uuomo Morone.  Here is a shot of last year's batch.

There is more but I got to go - the Giants just won the Super Bowl.  Way to go.  My bet paid off for once.

You just have to have some hummus with that great Pita bread you just made but don't buy that crud in the store that is just horrible and full a so many bad things, foul smells and  unusual tastes.  Make your own it is easy!!!  Here is how.  Simmer off till tender 1 1/2 cups of  dried Garbanzos (about an hour) that you soaked overnight in some home made chicken stock to cover and a bay leaf.  Let the beans cool in the stock in the fridge and drain off the liquid and reserve it in case the hummus is too thick or, better yet, to make garbanzo bean soup.

Take an onion and slice it width wise in thirds and put tooth pick in from the side to hold the onions together,  Slice some pieces of peppers (red, jalapeno, Serrano, poblano and hatch green also known as Anaheim) so the wide exterior skins lay flat.  Take some garlic cloves (at least 5)  coat them in olive oil and wrap in aluminum foil. brush the veggies with olive oil and grill them until they are nearly black.

Put the veggies in plastic bag or covered container or plastic wrap to sweat for 10 minutes so the skins of the peppers slough off easily.  Buzz the garlic, skinned peppers, onions and garbanzos in a food processor until smooth.  Add 2 T of Tahini (Sesame paste), 1 tsp salt, 3 T of lemon juice, 3 T of olive oil and buzz again until the Hummus is smooth as butter.  If it is too thick add some of the reserved hummus chicken stock.

Serve with those great pitas you just baked off !!!! 

Inspired by kjknits EM recipe I decide to try it out.  I don't have a cutter so I just cut them into square shapes with my dough scraper.  They turned out nice.  My wife, who eats the Thomas brand regularly, also seemed to like them too.  Thanks to kjkniots for the recipe.  They came out with holes on one side after slicing for some reason.  Maybe the side that hit the hot pan first got bubbles or cause them to go away?No I don't think I will be buying an EM cutter either - unless I find one at Goodwill.

These are delicious toasted with butter and home made 6P Jam ( prickly pear, pineapple, plum, pear & pomegranate)  Can't buy that at the store :-)

After changing my Multi grain Challah recipe to make it a S&F long ferment and retard bread, I decided to see if baking it in a cloche would make for an even better every day sandwich bread.  My Mother In Laws old Warner Ware Roaster 13" X 10" X 8" high seemed to be the only thing we own that might fit the bill.  I also has a nice rack to hold the bread pan off the bottom.    I heated the oven to 500 F (convection on) and put the entire roaster in the oven to heat up for 45 minuted.  No normal steam at all.  Once the roaster was hot ,I easily dropped the loaf pan in with oven mitts on and baked the loaf in the covered roaster for the first 20 minutes, turning the temperature down to 450 F convection.

The loaf, before it went into the roaster, had doubled in size from the overnight retard even though it still only came half way up the pan.  I was making a small test loaf.  The spring was an additional 100% as the finished loaf doubled again in the roaster.  After 20 minutes I took the roaster out of the oven, took the bread out of it and put the bread back into the oven to reach 200 F in the center of the loaf.  I then turned off then oven, cracked the door open and allowed the crust to dry.

The only thing I can say is that this might be the best loaf of this bread I have ever baked.  The crust was very dark brown with light brown specks.  Just beautiful!!  It was crispy crunchy yet still chewy.  The crumb was moist, light and also speckled with light brown flakes.  It tasted fantastic.  I bake this bread every week and this was by far the best.  I will bake it this way from now on.  The previous attempt I baked at 350 F with steam so the higher temperature played a big part I am sure.  So I will bake it next time the old way, No Cloche, but at the higher temperature to see what effects that has on this bread.

And who wouldn't want this bread to sop up a nice Garbonzo Bean Soup?

Here are a couple of shots of the SD Raspberry Pancakes made for breakfast a couple of days ago.  The spring was incredible !!! I used a starter that had been refreshed 3 days before some it wasn't in peak form.  Made the batter the night before and let it sit in the fridge overnight.  Very tasty too.  Another blog on TFL, sorry I can't remember which, inspired me.

I have picking teketeke's (Akikio) brain on making a yeast water starter and baking bread with it.  Akiko is a a generous person and very knowlegable about YW.  Since I have minneolas in the back yard, I started my yeast water with them and apples.  I was successful first time thanks to Akiko.  I built up a levain over 3 days and started searching for a recipe to use it on.  Zolablue's explosive spring Semolina Bread jumped out because the crumb I thought would work very well with the color of the TW.  Here is my formula,  Sorry it is not as technical as most I see on TFL.

Levain - 120 g ( 20g YW & 20g AP flour 12 hours, add 20 g YW and 20g flour 12 hours later, then 40 g AP flour 4 hours later. Kneed the final levain and let ferment 8 hours - all at 82 F

Bread dough:

semolina - 400 g

water - 300 g

sugar - 15 g

olive oil - 50 g

salt 10 g

Paddle mix levain and water in mixer until water is absorbed. Add everything else and kneed with dough hook 8 minutes  (Speed 4 on KA) until dough passes window pane. Put in oiled bowl and let rest 60 minutes. Then do 4 stretch and folds (each time in the bowl) every 30 minutes. Form into loaf and place in pan that is coated in non stick spray. Let rise until top of loaf, in the middle, is level with top of loaf pan - another 2-4 hours. Preheat oven 45 minutes at 400 F - regular bake - no convection.   Place steaming aparatus in the oven. Put bread in oven, turn down to 375 and steam for 20 minutes, remove steam and bake using convection for 20 minutes more. Take loaf out of pan and continue baking until loaf hits 200 degrees in the center.

I was really happy with the crispy crust and color of the exterior.  The crumb was soft, moist, very yellow and puffy in a good way.  The taste was straight up, pure semolina with no sour or fruit taste lingering from the YW.  Toasted, the bread really shines.  I am fond of YW now and will use it for non SD breads in the future.  Akiko makes TW Baggies!!!  That is on my list for sure if I ever learn to slash a loaf half decent!!

Make your own Greek yogurt and then use the drippings to make great bread by substituting the yogurt whey water for the water in your bread.

Get stuck with too many Red Pears and and Blueberries?  Make a chocolate crust, lemon and blueberry cheesecake and a blueberry, ginger and red pear Italian fruit tart with home made Puff Pastry that's what !!!!!

After finding out the Pierre Nury's Rustic Light Rye didn't have much if any rye taste or earthy taste either, I decided to try and see if I could get more rye taste and earth flavor without totally compromising Pierre's fine SD bread completely.

The changes include home grinding whole rye berrys and adding 25 grams more to make 75 total, adding 50 gramsof home ground whole spelt berries and deducting 75 grams of bread flour to keep everything in balance.  I also  lightly slit the loaves before they went into the bag for final rise to try to get them to rustically split on top. 

I really like this bread with these small changes. It kept all the great character of Pierre's original but produces more and deeper rye flavor and sour.  The spelt also gives the bread a very nice speckled brown crumb - something a Brownman appreciates :-)

Here are some Pic's

My next attempt at learning something new about bread, I decided to bake off David Snyder's SFSD that he is trying to perfect like the rest of his fine breads, with Pierre Nury's light SD Rye that I ran across in zolablu's fine blog.  Thought I would make them both as directed and bake them off in the same oven at the same time now that is is clean after my San Joaquin adventure even if it was a fiasco.  I used a compromised temp, steam and time since they didn't quite line up perfectly.  I did shape the Nury loaf and lightlu slashed it before in went into the final rise to try to get it to swell and split naturally somewhere on the top.  I used my new parchment containment system to control a very wet dough from spreading and ....It worked just fine.

David's small SFSD boule went into a heavily flowered basket that should have been floured more sanely.  I used 50% rice flour for this heavy handed dusting.  I have never done this before so, was flying a little blind and had read that they will stick when the basket is new.  Plus this basket was never meant for bread in the first place.  When I went to slash David's boule, it was pretty hard and my razor just sort of bounced off.  I finally butchered it with a big serated knife.  My slashing skills are quite primitive and weak to begin with even though I have seen many folks live, and on video doing it like it was easy as pie.  I think they are showing off knowing my slash challenged bread making skill :-)  David's didn't spring because of its tougher exterior and Nury's nearly exploded.  Both browned up nicely and I did bake the boule 5 minutes longer to get that deep dark skin.

The crumb was slightly more open on the boule but both were fine with holes of all sizes.  The weird thing was that I couldn't taste any rye in Nury's and I wanted to since I love rye.  Couldn't taste it in David's either.  In fact both the breads tasted the same to me. and both had the same sour undertone probably because they both used the same rye, spelt, WW and AP starter and levain.

David's won the taste test the next day as the crumb got , the sour revealed itself and it became more complex.  I can't wait for David to get it perfected as he is sure to do.  I have my own changes to make to Nury's 'Non Existent' Light Rye so that will be more rye like and complex in taste.  Here are some Pic's.