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So this morning I was mixing in levain with an Italian flour - https://granoro.it/le-linee-granoro/farine-e-preparati/ - the light green bag "per pizza" - soft wheat - type 0 - W250 - 10.7% protein.

Have had similar happen before with Italian flours in my kitchen where they have turned to "soup", however, this morning I kept my wits about me and watched closely what happened, and would love some insight from the experts here about what is going on.

In the mixer, on slow speed, on the dough hook, I was combining a dough with a yeast water levain made with the same flour. The main dough had also had about 1 hour of autolyse time, so both doughs were already well developed. Both doughs were not over-hydrated  - the autolysed dough was at 55% hydration and the levain at 65% hydration. The levain did have the same flour, but the flour mix was 78% granola and 22% hard red wholemeal that is fairly fine. I was just trying to combine in the levain really. Ran the mixer for about 4 minutes and all was well, the dough was pretty tight but to my eyes it didn't look like much had happened - it was clinging to the hook for all of those 4 minutes, the sides of the bowl were clean, and the doughs may (or may not!) have been mixed together by this mixing action.

Then I thought I'd add a small amount of water, a very small amount of water mind you, just to help the dough mix and to assist with eventually adding the salt grains. So, I added about 4g, the dough did the 'whoomp whoomp' sound, fell off the dough hook, swirled around a bit in the layer of 'muddy' dough you get and then started to cohere again on the dough hook, all took about 30 seconds. But then I added another 4g of water and it was at this point that things went wrong. The dough did not cohere again, rather it started puddling worse and worse, I let it run for a total of 2 minutes but those 2 minutes were enough to turn the dough into the soup. I tried adding the salt then, but it did nothing to tighten this dough (as it does with other doughs).

It's interesting that this happened on a slow mixer speed with a fairly low hydration - 60% overall - and a fairly low amount of bassinage water - 8g.  So my question is, in general is bassinage in a stand mixer like this an inherently bad thing? Should bassinage always be done by hand, or not at all? Or is it that the doughs were already fairly well developed and shouldn't have been in the mixer, or were too well developed for bassinage? Can a flour exceed its ability to hold water at such a low hydration with such a small amount of bassinage? The soupy dough 'runs' - it pours. It looks like it has lost the gluten that it had. In the past I've baked with it in loaf tins but it really doesn't produce a nice bread once it has broken like this.

Hi All, I have spent the past 9 years perfecting all of my baking to accommodate my son’s severe food allergies.
He recently passed a baked milk challenge and I am to bake cakes with at least 1 cup of milk in it. Unfortunately I cannot use eggs because he is allergic to them. I have spent the past week trying to make a moist cake that has milk and no eggs in it. I have had no success. They are dense and aren’t cooking all the way through.

Help please! Thank you for any insight!

When I first joined this Site, I was making some interesting breads and mentioned that we were having company over for dinner for a German Dining Fare.

My girlfriend, who I do refer to as "The Beautiful Countess Marina", or usually "The Countess", for short, is German, she grew up there and only moved to America when she was 19. She loves German Food, and there are quite a few things we do that are authentic German Recipes here, including Brotchen, which I also make for her all of the time, too!

She just mentioned what Bauernbrot was recently, though, so I had to do some research to find out how to make it anf this Recipe is what I came up with after comparing a few from her German Websites. It turns out marvelous, and she absolutely loves it! I call that a huge "WIN!" because she is very picky, believe that! LOL!

So I thought I might venture in here to share this Recipe with you, and if you do not wish to use Beer in the Recipe, just change that to water and it still works out fine..? But if you do add a Dark Beer, (I used "Founder's Breakfast Stout" and it was awesome both times I have made this Bread!) it changes the flavor dramatically and tastes so good!

For the basic “Bauernbrot” I use a mixture of whole wheat and white flour about 1 x 1, or to your liking. also diastatic malt powder, caraway seeds. I add beer and a little vinegar to the water. as you see the recipe below


    3 cups bread flour, I prefer half King Arthur 100% whole wheat and half King Arthur (or Pillsbury) white flour.
    Optional: add Rye and Spelt flour
    Mix as desired.
    1/4 tsp. active dry yeast
    1 tsp Diastatic Malt (“Krume” or dough enhancer)
    1 1/4 tsp. salt
    1 cup dark beer, 1/2 cup water, 2 tbsp vinegar

Double the recipe if you have a 6, or 7 Quart Dutch Oven, bake it at 480 F (500 F for more crispiness) for 55 min, remove cover and bake another 15 to 20 min. until golden-brown, and longer for a darker crust. Optional: Add to flour mixture 2 tbsp Wheat Bran, Germ, Flax seeds or Caraway seeds.


    Mix together the flour, diastatic malt (optional), yeast and salt
    Add to the flour lukewarm water with the dark beer and a little vinegar.
    Mix with hands or a Danish Dough Whisk
    Cover the bowl with plastic and let sit 17 to 22 hours covered loosely, best to rest overnight in a warm place.
    Scoop out dough, lie on board with flour. Do not knead!
    Form a loaf by flatten it first, then fold.
    You can let it rest in a cotton towel, but don’t have to, I usually use Parchment Paper
    Wipe the bottom of the Dutch oven with vegetable oil.
    Preheat oven to 480 to 500 degrees with Dutch oven inside.
    Slash or cut the top of the bread a single crescent line with a sharp knife a crisscross pattern 1/4 to 1/2 inch deep.
    Place the dough in hot Dutch oven, cover, and bake for 30 minutes.
    Remove the lid and bake an additional 10 to 25 minutes. The aroma is in the crust, therefore I prefer it dark with the lid off for 15 to 25 minutes.

Let cool completely on rack before cutting.

I also made a Loaf of my Home Made Whole Wheat French Bread, too, you can also see that in the second photo! LOL!

Just wanted to show off the inexpensive fermentation chamber for sourdough starters I made. It has gone through a few upgrades, but this is the final version (probably).

This started with a small Igloo Legend 12 cooler. I chose to heat it by attaching a small reptile heating pad to the inside back wall. I wired in an STC-1000 temperature controller, attaching the temperature sensor to a thermowell I had previously used, and inserted a small snap-in receptacle in the back.

Now, I have way to keep my starter at any desired temperature in a small chamber, without spending a huge amount of money. I would be interested in your thoughts.