Pain au Levain from Della Fattoria Bread, by Kathleen Weber
November 10, 2015
David Snyder
Introduction
My brother, Glenn, bought me a surprise present: A copy of Kathleen Weber's bread cookbook. When I called to thank him, he revealed his motive. He thought I'd like it. We Snyder kids do that sort of thing for each other.
I have made a variety of sourdough breads with nuts and with nuts and dried fruits. For some examples, see:
San Francisco-style Sourdough Bread with Walnuts and Figs
San Francisco-style Sourdough Bread with Walnuts and Sour Cherries
I had a hard time choosing a title for this blog entry. I thought about "SMSJSD," which you would eventually discover stands for "Senior Moment San Joaquin Sourdough." I thought about "Invulnerable Bread." I mostly thought about not posting anything about this bake. There is nothing new ... except that these loaves turned out so well in spite of my forgetting to ... Okay. Here's what happened.
Nothing new this week, but two of our current favorites, baked yesterday and today.
San Joaquin Sourdough Baguettes. The left-most as an Epi.
We had finished off the last batch of these for dinner the night before - Sandwiches of Smoked Chicken/Apple Sausages with spicy brown mustard. Last night, we had some of the Epi, still warm, with a beet, fennel and blue cheese salad and cold roast chicken.
July is the hottest month of the year in Fresno. For the past couple years, since I retired from practice, we have tried to get to cooler areas for as much of the month as possible. Being away from home more than usual, I do less baking than usual in July.
My baking for the first half of July has had an Italian theme.
Back in April, Khaled let me know he had enrolled in the Sourdough Bread workshop at the San Francisco Baking Institute. I volunteered to meet him there and, after he had a night to recover a bit from the 15 hour flight from Dubai, take him on a tour of San Francisco bakeries and show him some of the city sights. I also volunteered brother Glenn, who lives in San Francisco, to act as native guide.
I allowed myself to completely run out of San Joaquin Sourdough Baguettes. This is not acceptable, but it is remediable.
And in the mood for some whole wheaty bread. PiPs is in the queue, but today I made Hamelman's Whole Wheat Levain. It's pretty delicious fresh baked or toasted with almond butter.
