Blog posts

I felt like making my standard loaf yesterday but also felt like messing up processes that I have settled into for some time, just for the fun of it. 

Continuation of the panettone saga with a seasonal change: colomba, classic recipe, just substituted 20% candied orange peel with dark and milk chocolate.
 

The LM showed good balance, the primo tripled in size within 12 hours. The secondo was pretty sluggish, taking its time to rise. It didn't took off until I increased the temperature from my usual 27C to 29-30C. That made me quite skeptical.

I'm not very good in documenting the process. Only some random pictures.

After about 20-25min in the oven:

Unfortunately John Dough my trusty starter of many years has a fatal infection.  Finally returning home after 3 months away, I found grey mold on top and some orangey discolouration.  That orange mold is said to be quite dangerous so I tossed the whole thing.  Fortunately, I had dried him over the past 2 years and kept the dried flakes of starter in ziplock bags in the freezer.

Made with fresh milled flour except for some KAF bread flour in the levain. Mixed in my Ankarsrum and open baked with steam.

I added quite a large amount of purple potatoes, which, along with some Greek Yogurt, brought the overall hydration to around 110%. I’m surprised that the potatoes had zero purple coloring. I guess sweet potatoes work better in that regard.

The crumb is moist and open, and the flavor is fantastic. Next time, I would hold back some water to make the dough a little bit more manageable, but overall this one’s a keeper.

Amazon had the Chefman pizza oven on sale for $229, and I couldn't resist.

This is the first pie. In somewhat of a twist, the dough ball and sauce are grocery store, but I made the Romano, Asiago and White Cheddar cheeses, as well as the pepperoni. 

This was using the New York style preset (650F bottom, 600F top). I rotated 2.5 mins into the 5 minute bake, then added an addition 1.5 minutes at the end. 

It's not perfect, but I can definitely see that I can get there.

This recipe uses either yeast or starter, has a poolish, and the dough ferments overnight. I've used it many times and it's a good recipe from The Kitchn. Cooked in a ~325° electric frying pan, with lid, for 6 min per side.

Ragtag collection of rings. Lots of you don't bother with rings, but I have a quirk where, if I'm trying to replicate a store item, I want it to look like that item as much as possible. Didn't quite achieve it this time.

These are 40% white rye rolls with a little crunchy hat on top of them. God, the hats are so delicious. I generally only have enough stomach capacity for a roll, max 1.5 rolls, but I just want to eat the hats of all the buns. I asked the husband if I could please peel the hat off his bun and he says, yes, but please don't eat it because it's the best part of the bun! Zzzzz

Yes, I could bake a tray of hats exclusively, but it's different when the hat is on a bun.

Some breads just make me dream of what they taste like. For example, Lin's recent teff walnut and rye loaves. And in a good way they stimulate the creative juices as well as the Pavlovian ones!