The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Hi from a new member

tbednarick's picture
tbednarick

Hi from a new member

Now that I've made my inaugural post, I thought I'd introduce myself.

I live in Michigan and have made bread off and on for most of my adult life, although not always good bread. A couple of years ago, I got interested in making artisan and/or sourdough breads and tried making my starter from scratch. Most of my resulting bread wasn't very good because I didn't understand about hydration and wetter doughs. Thanks to this site and a few others, that has changed.

A couple of months ago (January? February?) I got ticked off that the expensive sourdough I was buying kept molding in 4 or 5 days (yeah, I know bread doesn't stay fresh that long, but we're a small family) and started googling how to make bread again. I wandered off and my husband stumbled on the New York Times No Knead Bread recipe. I thought it was some kind of hoax, but obsesive research showed otherwise and I made my first loaf.

All was well and we were pretty happy with the NKB, but I wanted sourdough! I found this site and Mike Avery's site and orderd Carl's Oregon Trail starter. I got it a couple of days before Memorial Day Weekend and have been nurturing it ever since. I try to make a loaf of bread and sourdough pancakes every weekend now.

Also, we're eating dairy and egg free due to my son's allergies and the sourdough pancakes beat the pants off the rice milk ones I was making. I use an egg replacer from the HFS and prior to the sourdough, we got gummy, half passable pancakes. My husband stopped asking for them on the weekend. Now we get tangy, tasty pancakes that are a joy to eat.

Marni's picture
Marni

I'm glad you found a way to make great egg free pancakes.  For other reasons, I make all our baked goods dairy free.  I have had no problem substituting rice milk in almost all recipes.  They are sometimes not as rich, but we think they're fine.

I also know a great banana bread recipe from allrecipes.com that has no eggs and is out of this world.  It is very dense and sweet.  I have changed it by adding a generous teaspoon of vanilla and chocolate chips.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Banana-Bread-VIII/Detail.aspx

Marni

tbednarick's picture
tbednarick

That recipe looks great. And chocolate chips are never a bad thing. I've never had the two together, but that will have to change soon.

The rice milk wasn't the causing the gumminess, it was the Ener-G egg replacer. We were successfully using rice milk before we found out The Boy was allergic to eggs too. For what ever reason, the Ener-G egg replacer works well in the sourdough pancake recipe we use. I make a small mod to this recipe in that I use about three cups of starter instead of two.

Tonya

LindyD's picture
LindyD

Always nice to see another Michiganian at TFL.

tbednarick's picture
tbednarick

I think we're pretty close...I live in the northwest part of the state and I've seen you mention Stonehouse Bread.

Tonya 

LindyD's picture
LindyD

Hmm, since you know Stonehouse, does that put you near Batali's summer home?

I'm between Gaylord and Petoskey, in the middle of the Mitt, as they say....

tbednarick's picture
tbednarick

I live west of Cadillac and work in TC.

pmccool's picture
pmccool

I grew up near Kalkaska (TC was the "big city" for us) and went to college at Michigan Tech.  My wife is from Fife Lake.  Between us, we have family in TC, Grand Rapids, Manton, Kingsley, Cadillac, Delton (near Kalamazoo), Flint, the Detroit metro area, Ann Arbor, St. Joseph, Petoskey and probably a few other places that I'm not thinking of. 

You'll see some other Michiganders (current and former) showing up here, too.

Paul

mkelly27's picture
mkelly27

My dear LindyD, everybody knows the middle of the mitt is located at my house in Clare.

tbednarick, I hike and paddle in your neck of the woods often, nice country.

 

Mike

_______________________________________________________

Redundancy is your friend, so is redundancy

tbednarick's picture
tbednarick

Mike and LindyD

I pretty much think all of northern Michigan is one the nicest places to live in the entire country.   I don't get to Petoskey much, but when I do, I sure enjoy it.

Mike, One of the funniest things I've seen was two grown men riding a cow in the St. Patrick's day parade in Clare.  What was even funnier was that the road was not blocked off and we could drive through while the parade was going on.  At least that's how I remember it.

LindyD's picture
LindyD

everybody knows the middle of the mitt is located at my house in Clare.

Geographically you are absolutely correct, Mike, and I'm awful because I tend to overlook everything south of M-32. Must be the air up here.

Tonya, that's one heck of a commute! How do you find time to bake?

 

 

 

 

 

mkelly27's picture
mkelly27

Lindy, I like your part of Michigan better than mine. :)

 

Tonya, I am on the Irish Festival committee (10 yrs. now) and am always in that parade in one for or another.  I also host an Irish Recipe contest, although I must recuse my Irish Soda Bread from the competition as it keeps winning prizes

_______________________________________________________

Redundancy is your friend, so is redundancy