Benito's blog

So I needed to bake more presents and planned to repeat my star shaped bake, but last minute decided to use a more traditional rolled bun shaping.  I also made some creamed cheese icing to top these.  My partner and I got to quality control this bake as I cut one bun out and can report that they are quite yummy.  although you definitely get the cinnamon, the ginger carries through the finish.  As expected, the crumb is fluffy, shreddable and so soft.  I’ll keep this recipe for another Christmas to bake again.

I’ve wanted to make a bread done with this star shaping for quite sometime so decided that Christmas baking was the perfect time to try it out.  It is fun and pretty easy overall to do.  Because I needed this to be done fairly quickly I didn’t convert this recipe to sourdough and instead just used IDY.

This doesn’t quite follow the guidelines of the Infinity Bread for the Community Bake, but it is my contribution.  My non wheat flour isn’t up to the 33% range that is in the write up.  I chose buckwheat flour which I toasted well to bring out the nutty flavour to the maximum.  I used the toasted buckwheat flour as all the flour in a tangzhong.  The texture of the tangzhong is different from what I’m used it, it was clumpy in lumps rather than one big mass.

Close friends of our send us rhubarb every spring so I wanted to make something to bring them when we were visiting last weekend.  I came up with a sweet bun with a sour cherry and rhubarb filling along with a lemon icing.  They turned out quite well.

I know I’ve made these many times trying to improve them, but I think for the flour that I use which is an organic AP equivalent to T55 I have settled on what I think is the ideal hydration and degree of fermentation.  I have baked another set today along with the pie for a dinner party we are throwing tonight.  Hopefully our guests will enjoy the meal.  The main course is a miso vinegar chicken dish with peperoncinis and peppers.  Both the miso and the red wine vinegar I make myself, the miso is fermented for 1 year.

Recently we’ve acquired a preference for streusel topped pies over double crusted pies.  One of the nice things about a streusel topping is that you can add spices or nuts to it that might compliment the flavours of the filling.  In this case the filling has both cinnamon and allspice so they were also added to the streusel.  Another thing about streusel toppings is that you can have your pastry rolled out and crimped and then frozen, fill your pie and then throw on the streusel and immediately bake.  It is so fast and simple.

I was thinking the other day about eliminating the butter from my milk breads and remembered the bottle of toasted walnut oil in my cupboard that needed to be used, so I came up with this loaf.  I was in a rush out the door at the time I needed to shape this so I did the lazy thing and shaped it as a batard and not into my usual four lobes.  I actually quite like how this turned out visually especially when topped with black sesame seeds.

I was going to add cinnamon to the purple sweet potato but realized that I wanted this bread for sandwiches so the cinnamon wouldn’t be a good idea.  However, if this bread was for toast, adding some cinnamon to the purple sweet potato would have been delicious.  To make this bread, you’ll need to prepare some mashed purple sweet potato.  I did this a while back, then portioned and froze the portions in ziplock bags.  Once defrosted I blend the mash with a combination of sugar and flour.

I was pressed for time and was tasked with bringing bread to my family’s Thanksgiving dinner yesterday.  The previous time I made rolls with Nfld savoury I didn’t use enough to taste them as much as I would have liked.  This time the Mt Scio savoury flavour was lovely and the milk rolls were enjoyed by all.

I got my hands on some good stoneground whole red fife so wanted to incorporate it into my milk bread.  I haven’t used any red fife for a long while so it was due.  Because of the issues with gluten breakdown that seems to happen with red fife, I decided to use it all in the tangzhong, 20% since the gluten in the tangzhong won’t matter since it is cooked.

I had some pepitas and a handful of sunflower seeds lying around so decided to add them to this loaf.