Blog posts

In my other post I showed the lasagna that I made from sourdough pasta. My husband is the pasta maker and I turn it into dinner...so it is a joint effort. It makes the most remarkably tender and flavorful pasta. I use what ever white starter I have  . Mine is usually at 100% hydration. One very nice thing about the SD pasta is its keeping quality in the fridge after you let it dry on the counter. It will last easily for a week if you wrap it well. We make extra and then dry on the counter on cloth towels and then store in fridge to be eaten with various toppings.

I like pizza quite a lot, but my wife loves it. She told me last night that Pizza is the one food she can “over-eat.” I could not start to list the foods I will predictably over-eat given the opportunity, but my wife has this super-human self-control. So this confession tells you that pizza is really special to her.

I've made some pretty good pizze and some not so good. Last night I made the best pizza I've ever made by a long shot. In fact, I do believe it was the best pizza crust I've ever eaten.

Hello everyone,

It’s been a summer of so much sun here in the Pacific Northwest – have tried to capture the season with some pictures –  flowers, light and beautiful sunshine.

the center of this flower seemed like the sun's rays...

So last week the cool guy who trades me goat cheese requested the sesame levain I made on week three.  I was hesitant as I didn't intend to go back and replicate or improve any recipes but I reconsidered quickly and thought it would be nice to fulfill a request.  I had to make a few changes though.  I cut the lemon idea entirely as I dont' want to find out how much zest I'd need to actually taste it and the loaf was so good when I couldn't taste it.  Secondly I doubled the levain and reduced the final dough ingredients to keep the formula the same.

Maybe this should be called Hamelman's Pain au Levain, mostly, because there were a couple of small excursions from the formula presented in Hamelman's Bread, 2nd Edition. 

baked this yesterday... yes, it is for my friends. this time they dropped by my place when i was baking. they were delivering an early birthday cake for me!! 

and i treated them a freshly baked bread from the oven!

home baked blueberry cheesecake :) what a surprised!

I used a small amount of organic rye flour, perhaps 10% in my white bread flour starter and that seemed to kick things up a bit.I have reduced the proofing time to 40 minutes on the batard and while a little easier to score, my lame work still needs work.  Next bake I will try a 35 minute proof for the batard/ baguette.

All three loaves are 20% Rye Sourdough.

one with Caraway Seeds, one with Fennel Seeds…..

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and one with Rolled Oats on top…..

Not long ago Varda did a series of posts on her quest to recreate a non SD Pratzel’s Tzitzel.  She had the good fortune of talking to the original owners about the formula for this bread and gained some good insight.  I though I would do a SD one just to be different and I prefer SD any day, any way to yeasted breads

I've used Reinhart's Portuguese Sweet Bread recipe to make Hawaiian Rolls for a friend on a couple of occasions.  I modify the recipe in his Bread Baker's Apprentice book to use a poolish at 100% hydration and to include more flour as I find this recipe very sticky for some reason.  The original recipe's overall hydration is not that high, but maybe I screwed up the measurements somewhat.  Next time I may try Floyd's Hawaiian Rolls recipe which is similar but includes pineapple juice.