Blog posts

Two weeks ago, we made some cup cakes and muffins. Techniques like creaming (beating butter and sugar first), and all together were essentially what we used for cupcakes and muffins. Foaming technique was not used here, only for sponge cakes that require no soda or baking powder. This lesson wrapped up the baked goods section, and we were scheduled to start cold and hot desserts next.

I couldn't resist posting today's bake for a couple of reasons.  The first being that this formula has won lots of praise from those for whom I currently bake.  The second reason stems from the fact that it is a result of good old tweaking.  It was inspired by a recent post of hanseata's.  

Yes, baking instructors have homework, too.  And both of this week's bakes are geared to upcoming classes that I will teach at the Culinary Center of Kansas City.

I let nature take its course and instead of scoring the dough, I let the dough tear itself during oven spring- something like the Incredible Hulk's shirt. It saves me the shuffling around looking for my razor blade during that critical oven loading time, not scoring the dough saves me so many motions which- in my modis operandi- is performed like a magicians trick, sleight of hand style.

Ah November... for me, as a mom, this is the one time of year I start to dread all the sugared temper tantrums that are bound to become a regular thing now that the season of non-stop candy and sweets is upon us.

I still want something sweet, but I would rather see all the *sugar, sugar, sugar!* that the kids are bringing home get thrown out, so today I made Guilt-Free Hippie Cookies.

After my first cheese bread success at work (which in fact needed more cooking, but was a success anyway) I decided to get a chorizo bread now.

In this, my third bread, I made some adjustments:

• Increase the oven temp to 220ºC from 150ºC.
• Make sure I put salt! LOL.
• Experiment with steam to get a crust.
• Add more yeast to get more bubbles inside the bread and increase size.

Receipe:

taking into DA's advise finally been able to bake a loaf with a moist and soft crumb. Adding the soak water of long an and goji berries give this bread a sweetness tang. 

So, after my last try to make bread with an overnight retarded fermentation (which I REALLY want to succeed in because it will intensify the flavors of the bread enormously) I made a new attempt. With the help of dabrownman I discussed my last experiment of making a wheat bread with overnight fermentation. The wheat bread was a great success, taste wise, but I had problem with a very compact crumb.

 Last week, I got a nice private message from a TFL member who had just made and enjoyed the Sourdough Italian Bread about which I blogged back in 2008. That bread was Peter Reinhart's Italian bread from BBA with the biga converted to a biga naturale, AKA firm sourdough starter.

That message reminded me that in 2011 I developed another “Italian Bread” formula that I actually preferred to the 2008 version. Coincidentally, my Italian class classmates have been harassing encouraging me to bring some of my breads to class for them to sample.

This was my first addition experience.  I thought I would take a bit of risk and go for something savory.  I think this was so tasty!  I added 120g of toasted pecans and 105g of the Tillamok Sharp Cheddar.  I used 125G WW and 675g KA AP flour, 360g of my Levain.  The retard was 8 hours.