The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Hello from Michigan's Upper Peninsula

ringopaul's picture
ringopaul

Hello from Michigan's Upper Peninsula

Hey all,

I have been following TFL for months now and finally decided that there was no reason why I shouldn't join this wonderful community. Many of you have already unwittingly helped me on my quest to improve my baking skills, and for this I thank you.

I live in a small (2,000 people) tight knit farming community where everyone is willing to help each other out in any way they can. The TFL community seemed to embody many of the qualities that I love  about my town that I couldn't resist joining this great site.

Today I baked my second attempt at BBA's pain a l'ancienne. This bread seemed incredibly easy to prepare and bake, but I do have to say my wet dough handling skills could use some work. I can't seem to transfer the cut dough from counter to parchment paper without degassing the dough.

Below is a picture of my second attempt at this recipe and I found the crumb a little tighter than my first attempt but the taste was just as amazing. Also my wife and I found that the hardened leftovers, if there are any, make excellent dog treats!

In this recipe I used five roses bread flour and red star active dry yeast. I'm down to my last bit of five roses flour and will be looking for another bread flour to replace it, I'm not too impressed with the results from this flour for BBA recipes. I will also be changing over to SAF instant yeast as I just found a local resource for it. These loaves? baguettes? were baked at 525 for the steaming portion of the bake then dropped temp to 500 for 25 min with some rotating during the bake for evenness.

I'm gonna have to search for my pics of my other recipe attempts and see if I can't post them here.

questions, comments and constructive criticism are welcome

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

There are a few of us here...  Your sticks look great!   Our 4 legged friends are always around when homemade bread is around.

2000?  OK, then you're not in Mass City.

ringopaul's picture
ringopaul

Mini Oven,

We are in Skandia which is about 16 miles south of Marquette.

My 10 year old Chocolate lab Cira(seer rah) is my sous chef LOL.

ringopaul's picture
ringopaul

 

This is my first loaf of BBA's pain de campagne. This loaf had a great crust but a very tight crumb. not sure how that happened but I plan on returning to this recipe and playing with the hydration.

This is a variation of the BBA pain de campagne recipe that I did. the loaf on the left is a jalepeno/cheddar loaf the loaf on the right is just a plain pain de campagne loaf.

Below is the crumb shot of the jalepeno/cheddar and regular pain de campagne. A bit tight I think, so I plan to revisit this recipe later and play with the hydration some.

any questions, comments or constructive criticism is always welcome.

pmccool's picture
pmccool

Welcome to TFL, from a native-born troll.

Paul

ringopaul's picture
ringopaul

Thanks, my wife and I are native born trolls also.

 

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

with all the sun activity?

ringopaul's picture
ringopaul

we had some activity early this spring but not much since then. believe it or not we have been here going on 9 years now and this year was the first year my wife finally got to see the lights. where we live in skandia there is very little light pollution so the summer night sky is beautiful, on a clear night we can see the milky way with great detail as well as passing satelites :) I wouldn't move from here for anything in the world.