It has been awhile since I've been on Fresh Loaf. I have been bread busy and so too bread exhausted for posting lately. For the last few weeks I've been selling on Saturday mornings at a winter market, held in the greenhouse of a large nursery.
I love spelt but not too much of it. My high percentage spelt loaves have turned out fine, but somehow don't get eaten up, even by me. Today I made a Pain au Levain with added Spelt and kept the spelt to 21%. To my taste at least, this is ideal. The resulting loaf has that special nutty fresh taste that spelt in small enough quantities provides.
I've been baking a lot lately, as I try to master my Cadco oven. Some breads come out better than in my conventional gas home oven, others not so much. The other day I made challah, and it came out better than ever. Unfortunately I didn't take good notes, so I'm not quite sure how I baked it. I did one six strand loaf and the other seven. The seven was strangely flat and boring. I guess I need a fancier braiding regime.
I have been meaning to make pulla for awhile, ever since various intriguing posts on the subject. I followed a combination of jarkkolaine (formula) and Julie J. I only had cardamon pods, so sort of stripped them and crushed them in my coffee grinder. Not so easy. The cardamon makes this incredibly tasty.
I love Jewish Rye, but haven't quite got the angle on getting people who didn't grow up with it to love it. My latest attempt - replace caraway seeds with charnushka. At least it makes a dramatic presentation. For good measure I also made a durum levain with black instead of white sesame.
Quick update on my Cadco oven. It took an electrician doubling as an oven mover helper, an amateur plumber, and a fan, but it's now up and running, and I am starting to learn to use it. No surprise but it requires lower temperature AND shorter baking time. This fig anise bread took 30 minutes total, at first 400F, then 350F, then 300F as I kept lowering it to keep the crust from getting too dark before the inside could bake. It looks a bit lonely in there doesn't it, but no way am I going to bake a big load of bread before I get to know its wa
Recently a customer asked me to bake a fig anise bread. She had bought a loaf from Standard Baking in Portland Maine, and loved it, but doesn't get up there often. At first I was a little reluctant to go down this road, as I thought figs? anise? really? but then decided to see what I could come up with. A search on TFL revealed that there was just such a bread in Nancy Silverton's La Brea book. As this has been on my list forever, I bought a copy, procured some dried black mission figs and anise seed,
What could be more simple, or more difficult than a baguette? It's safe to say that in the few months since I decided it was time to learn to make baguettes, I have tried around 20 different approaches. Many of these failed, and many were pretty good. Many followed along with strategies outlined by TFLers. And yet a tweak here, a chainsaw there, and pretty soon I was off on my own.
So many decisions when it comes to the humble baguette:
In addition to my recent foray into selling at the farmers market, I have also been doing a small bake to order business out of my house. I post a few choices for one day a week, and people order a couple days in advance. Then stop by and pick up. This is very constrained as zoning regs say that only 6 people per day can come to the house to purchase. It would take a neighbor complaint to make enforcement kick in, but obviously it could only grow so much.
Lately I've been so focused on baking what I know consistently and well that I haven't tried new things. Fortunately I am still a regular browser (if less frequent commenter) on TFL and there is a lot of new out there. Josh (golgi170) has been posting one interesting bread after another, and I haven't had a chance to start let alone catch up. Yesterday I decided to try his Sprouted Wheat Levain, that of the beautiful ear. Wh
