This was originally posted on my blog Healthy living, you can see more images there but here is the run down of my day baking.

Bake n Blog February 9 2010 finish
As my bake day came to the close it was more of a disappointment than success this time. There were happy moments that shun through on small occasions but over all it was a bust. My spelt sourdough that I like to make did not turn out, the substitution of white flour with wheat made the dough wet and hard to work with, and when I free formed the bread it decided to run all over and became more of a large flat bread. The only good part of this bread story is that I got a proof cabinet and made wooden shelf for the proffer so non of my bread stuck to the shelves. When the bread baked the flavor was more sour than I would like, reading few blogs about baking I learned that the small amount of salt does not add much to the flavor so this time I skipped the salt on my breads, big no no, the small pinch of salt that we add to the dough actually makes a big difference in taste. The Pain au Levain turned out great except that I also held the salt back so it's not as flavorful but over all it is a good bread.

To Success.

This bake I decided to try and convert my beer pizza dough from using dry yeast to sourdough and it was a success. I hope to share about this in my next blog, I baked 4 pizzas including 1 with bananas and cinnamon, and we loved it.

Things I learned from the bake.

One main thing I have learned from this bake is that when you are trying a new bread or a changing your current recipe, do it to a single loaf of bread, not your whole mix.

Stick to what works, and what you know that you will like.

Use salt, although it's a small amount but does enhance the flavor tremendously.

Most of all don't get disappointed, you can always try again.

Till our next bake.

I have baked bread for few times and feel comfertable working with the dough, but sweeets that's another story. This is my first posting sweet cookies here I origenaly had it on my blog http://www.ourwholesomehomes.com

One of my favorite cookies that I had as a child were mint cookies with mint glaze on them, it was so refreshing to have a mint cookie with some milk on a cold winter night. With valentine's day just around the corner I decided to find my moms recipe and recreate them with a twist so they would fit more with valentine theme. This is a simple recipe that is easy to make and kids will enjoy helping.

Cookie Ingredients.

2 eggs yolks. (keep the whites for glaze)
2 cups organic sugar.
2 cups sour cream or heavy whip.
5 cups Organic white flour.
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder.
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda + 1 table spoon vinegar*
1/2 teaspoon of mint extract. (the amount depends on type of mint concentrate that you are using, here we will assume that this is a basic store bought mint extract).

Glaze Ingredients.

2 egg whites
2 cups of powdered sugar.
Juice of 1/2 a lemon or 1 teaspoon of lemon juice.
1/2 teaspoon of mint extract.
food color.

*First we should look at soda and vinegar, take your baking soda and combine it with vinegar in a separate cup.

Combine all the ingredients, add the baking soda and mix with mixer or by hand till the dough is one consistency, the dough is somewhat wet, you might need to oil your hands when working with the dough. Place the dough in a fridge for 1/2 hour to cool.

Glaze instruction.

Combine all the ingredients and mix till the glaze is semi stiff, don't mix the glaze early because it will start drying out and will become hard to work with. The best time to do this is when you start baking you cookies. Add your color to the glaze while mixing otherwise it will be snow white.

Cookies

Take your dough and divide it in 2, oil the surface and roll it out with a roller in to 1/4 inch thick sheets. Cut the dough in to desire shapes, the dough is somewhat sticky so be careful when removing it from the surface, place on cookie sheet and bake in 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes till the cookie is golden on the bottom and still light on the top. You don't need to oil the cookie sheet if you are using heavy whip.

When the cookies are ready remove them from the oven and glaze them ether by dipping them in the glaze or by using a brush. I found it easier to use a silicon brush and to apply the glaze while the cookie is still hot, this way the glaze will melt and have a nice and even consistency.

This was first posted on my blog Healthy Living @ http://www.ourwholesomehomes.com

Not to long ago Grand Central Bakery in Portland OR sold raisin panini, but according to my brother in law who drove out to the bakery regularly just to pick them up, they stopped making them, so with that said I decided to create my own version of panini. In the process of my last bake I took 2 kg of the dough that was made for bread and convert it to panini dough. Since I was going for a healthier version of panini I used spelt based sourdough.

Dough recipe.

400 gr 150% hydration rye starter.
800 gr Organic whole Spelt flour.
200 gr Organic dark rye flour.
600 gr Organic white flour.
30 gr Salt.
2 handful of raisins (reason I don't measure these is that you can never have to much raisins and same goes for walnut).
1 handful of walnut.

Soak your raisins in water for about an hour, then pat them dry with a paper towel, the reason for doing this is that they will have lots of water and it will make your dough to moist.

Mix your starter with water, add flour and salt mix, for 3 minutes.

Rest the dough for about 20 minutes in a bowl.

Knead for 5 minutes.

Rest again for 30 minutes.

Take your dough and dump it on a counter add your raisins and walnut to it and knead for about 10 minutes you will have to adjust the dough by adding more flour to it, the best way to do this is by taking your hands and sticking them in to the flour and mixing the dough, this way the flour will be absorbed evenly, you might have to repeat this for few times until your dough is nice and elastic.

Place the dough back into the bowl, cover it with a tea towel and let it rise for 4 to 6 hours or until almost double.

Divide the dough into small rolls, just smaller than tennis ball size and let it proof for 1 to 2 hours. The best way to check if it's ready is if you use a finger press test.

Place in your wood fired oven, spray some water above it to create steam, close the door and let them bake for about 15 minutes. Don't forget that they are smaller and will bake faster than your bread so check on them after 10 or so minutes.

Let them cool and enjoy as a healthy desert, they are perfect with some cream cheese or some jam.

You can see more images on my blog.

Yesterdays recap.

11 hours since I started my bake n blog day, I finally completed my bake. At first the dough was giving me some trouble, by being stubborn and not wanting to double fast enough, luckily my wife came up with a great solution, I took it into our baby room where we keep it warmer, and with in two hours it popped wright up.

I divided the dough into 1.5lb loaves and let it rise free formed on my granite counter. Last week I tried using tea towel but all my loaves got stuck to it and the bread fell flat as I was removing it from them. All together I had 16 loaves of bread and 20 paninis. As with my previous bake I still had trouble mastering the slashing, I will need to practice more with that.

One of the accomplishments is that I was able to place the bread in the wood fired oven in such a way that I baked all of them in just to bakes, so that is great, It means that I can bake more bread with out having to fire the oven again.

On the Pain au Levain I added extra steam to the oven about 7 minutes after placing the bread in, that resulted in a much crustier crust which I liked.

The spelt bread is the best variation that I have tried so far, it's definitely going to be one of the breads that I will bake regularly. One of the main thing I learned in this bake is to just relax during the whole process and don't try to rush things, sometimes the little beasts in the starter like to work on there own schedule and we just cant do much about it. It was lots of fun and I know that my family and many of my friends will enjoy the bread for the week to come.

Please visit my site to see more pictures from the bake.

Healthy living.

Today I'm baking 4 different breads and I decided to write about my bake as I go. Also I created a new adventure that perhaps we as bakers can all have fun in it's called Bake-n-Blog Triathlon.

Please check it out and tell me what you think.

For info on Bake-n-Blog Triathlon

http://www.ourwholesomehomes.com/2010/01/bake-n-blog-triathlon-january-16-2009.html

To follow my bake

http://www.ourwholesomehomes.com/search/label/Bake-n-Blog

My last bake yielded 10 beautiful loves of bread, that turned out great with a soft crust and a nice mild flavor. This is the first bake that I did with spelt flour, but I got to tell you I absolutely loved the bread. As a meter of fact the next day I went out and bought myself 25lb of organic spelt flour. Back to the bread, this bread was baked in my WFO all 10 loaves at one time. Here is how I made this and I plan to make some other variation of this bread.It takes about 9 hours to bake this bread, meaning 20 minutes for the bake and the rest for kneading and resting the dough.

Ingredients for baking 10 small breads 1.5Lb each.

1kg (1000gram) rye starter 150% hydration.
3kg (3000gram) organic spelt flour.
1kg (1000gram) organic white flour.
2.5kg (2500gram) water, room temp.
75gram sea salt ground.

I start by doubling my starter a night before the bake from 500 gram to 1100 grams, since I will start mixing all the ingredients at about 5 am I figured that I need to mix my starter at about 9:00pm the night before, that way it will have 8 hours to double and become very active.

On the morning of the bake I take all the starter except 100 gram, which I will use to get my new starter for next bake, add it to with all my ingredients and hand mix it for about 3 minutes.

Rest the dough for 20 minutes this will allow the flour to fully absorb the water.

I believe that one of the secrets to having great bread is to make sure that the dough is well kneaded, so after 20 minute rest I knead the bread for about 15 minutes, (you also get a great work out in the morning if you do that).

Rest the dough again for 30 minutes, the dough should feel soft and elastic with a slight stick to it.

Final kneading, again mixing it for about 20 minutes.

First rice will take about 4-6 hours and that can vary, your dough should almost double in size before you will shape it in to breads.

When the dough almost doubled divide into individual breads, you can free form it, or use form. After forming let it rest for the second time, rising until it almost doubled in size, this will take about 2 hours. Cover the breads with a towel and you can spray a light mist of water to prevent it from drying.

Make sure your bread oven is nice and hot, test the floor of the oven by sprinkling some flour on it. After the bread has almost doubled place in the oven close the door and bake for about 20 minutes.

If you are baking this in you home oven you will need to preheat your oven to 455 F, bake for about 30-40 minutes.

This bread will be darker in color because of the spelt flour and the rye starter. You can also use light spelt and spelt starter, adjust the spelt starter to 100% hydration.

What do you think of this bread??

http://www.ourwholesomehomes.com

Semolina sourdough baked in my wood burning oven.

This is my first bread ever so I'm proud of my achievement, beginning of this year I set out on a new adventure of bread baking in wood burning oven. About a month ago I completed my wood oven and 3 weeks ago started my starter going. Yesterday was the glories day of baking, the bread turned out OK had a great pop in the oven and tastes great. Had it with dinner yesterday, made French toast today and enjoying a slice of bread and honey with my tea.

http://www.ourwholesomehomes.com/2009/12/my-first-baked-bread.html