Isand66's blog

Both of these bakes were pretty simple for me and I had to restrain myself from adding some cheese or other ingredient :).  Sometimes simple is best and I have to admit the Spelt Barley loaf tastes awesome.  It has a nice chewy crust with deep nutty flavors from the spelt and barley flours.  It made an excellent pastrami sandwich for lunch the other day with some melted cheese and Thousand Island dressing.

I've been wanting to try milling some dried corn into flour for some time and finally found some on Amazon a little while ago.  For this bake I used around 17% fresh corn flour so it didn't really add much purple color as I had hoped, but it smelled amazing after milling and did add a nice subtle corn flavor to the bake.

I had some leftover rice so I added some into the mix along with some ricotta cheese to make a nice soft and flavorful dough.  This one smelled like you could eat it before even baking it!

I've made a similar bread in the past with cranberries instead of cherries but I also changed the flour up a bit and added some fresh milled rye.

I thought the crumb would be more red, but you definitely could taste the wine and of course cherries make the perfect compliment.  Adding some chocolate would make this a great bread to have with some cheese for dessert.

My fellow baker and good friend A.K.A. "Yippee" from The Fresh Loaf site has been gracious enough to mail me several loaves of her awesome bread as well as some other goodies.  It was high time I shared some of my bread with her.  It's taken me longer than it should have, but I needed to figure out how to get the bread to the post office since I leave my house to go into the city every day very early.

I baked this one several weeks ago but have not had a chance to post.  This is a 70% Whole Wheat bread made with freshly ground whole wheat with no sifting.  I watched a video on how to adjust the stones in my MockMill II and ended up with a super-fine flour, no sifting necessary.  I think for the next bake I will sift courser and still sift once and then re-grind at the fine level.

This one turned out a little denser than I would have liked, but it had a nice tang to it and made great toast.

Since I started my new job in the big city I have not had a lot of time to bake.  Last weekend I found enough time to whip this one together.  I used mostly freshed milled and sifted flours for this bake and added a little KAF Bread flour for some extra strength.  I have grown to love adding cooked rice to the bread.  You don't taste the actual rice but it adds a great texture to the crumb and helps promote softness as well.  The ricotta cheese also helps create a soft and moist crumb which this one certainly had.

I have been meaning to sprout some flour again and finally got around to doing it.  Boy am I glad I did!  The unique flavor from using freshly ground sprouted flour is amazing.

I made 1 big loaf and about 5 rolls which I ended up eating in 2 days ?.  I do have to say the rolls were probably some of the best ones I have made to date.  The combo of rice, potatoes and sprouted flour made them nice and soft and full of so much flavor.  I am going to make another batch of just rolls next time and freeze them for later use so I don't eat all of them right away!

I've been wanting to try baking these for quite some time now and finally managed to do it.  Unlike NY style bagels these are not boiled, but rather baked and dipped in a sweet pomegranate molasses and sesame seed mixture which gives these bagels a very unique flavor.  I converted a recipe using instant yeast to sourdough I found in The Palestinian Table by Reem Kassis. My mother starter is kept at 66% hydration so if yours is different you can adjust accordingly.

     It's about to get real chilly here on Long Island tomorrow.  They're predicting the temperature to go down into the low teens, so what better bread to eat with a bowl of hot soup than a nice hearty 50+ percent rye bread.

This one has beer in the main dough which always adds a great flavor to rye bread.  The sour cream in the porridge adds extra moisture and really made this bake perfect.  The rye flavor really does come through so if you are not a fan of rye this is not the bread for you.

I've made bread with cider before and always like the sweet flavor it imparts.  I decided to add some roasted white sweet potato to this one and it really helped create a super moist crumb.  I was actually pleasantly surprised at how moist this crumb turned out.  The flavor was fantastic and this bread is the perfect sandwich bread for some pastrami or any deli meat.

Please note, white sweet potato is not as sweet as the orange type and the water content is less so if you use them instead, you need to adjust your hydration accordingly.