Isand66's blog

   Spring is finally here so it was time to make some rolls to use for grilled burgers.  I used a mix of fresh milled spelt and whole wheat along with some KAF bread flour.

I wanted to see if I could get some maple flavor in these so I added a dark 100% maple syrup in the levain and in the main dough.  Well, that achieved nothing except making the levain triple in size from the natural sugars in the syrup.  It did add a nice sweetness to the rolls but not enough to be over the top.

I've made bread with sweet potatoes before, but I have to say this is my best one yet.  Moist and flavorful there's not much to complain about on this one.

I used a combo of freshly ground flours as well as Caputo 00 type flour.  The cottage cheese, eggs and roasted sweet potatoes created a moist and flavorful bread.

Note: Water content of whole eggs is 80 grams, Cottage Cheese 81 grams, Sweet Potatoes 145 grams for a total of 306 grams.  This was not included in the formula so the hydration of this bread is much higher than listed.

 I promised my wife last month that I would make her a version of a chocolate bread she saw posted from a bakery on-line.  I finally had a chance to bake my version.  I wanted to make a soft moist bread with plenty of flavor and several different types of chocolate.

  I have made several breads with this long autolyse technique in the past and I'm always happy with the well developed flavor and open crumb it produces.  By adding the porridge element and upping the hydration it really created a wonderfully moist and open crumb.  The toasted grains really came through in the flavor department as well.  This is definitely one worth baking again.

Note, you don't need to use the new Jumbo Size Kitchen Aid mixer to get the same results I did :).  (This was actually on display at the Housewares Show in Chicago last weekend).

  This is a pretty simple bake with mostly fresh milled and sifted flour with some Greek Yogurt added for some extra moisture and softness and a little lemon infused honey to round it out.  I just bought a new #40 mesh sifter so I was able to get a pretty smooth durum flour close to what I used to buy at KAF.

This one turned out very tasty, unless you don't like smoked sesame seeds or garlic sesame seeds which I added to the top of the loaves.  The crumb was soft and moderately open, perfect for grilled bread, sandwiches and just some toast with butter or cheese.

 I love making and eating English Muffins.  They are so versatile and freeze well.  I usually keep 4-5 out and freeze the rest and toast them as needed.

This is similar to the last batch I made, but this time I used Rye instead of Spelt and I added some roasted potatoes.

I was very happy with the final result.  They were a little wet and I had to use a lot of bench flour, so next time cutting back on the water slightly wouldn't hurt.

The crumb was perfect for English Muffins and they toast up real nice with a smear of cream cheese :).

     Sometimes you feel like a nut....sometimes you don't.....Well I always love nuts; especially pecans!

For this bake I ground some fresh pecans in my mini food processor and added that to the levain with some AP and freshly milled whole wheat.  The idea was to get some extra pecan flavor into this bake and I think it worked.

Cranberries go great with pecans and also complimented the mix of freshly ground spelt, rye and whole wheat.  I added a little honey to give it a touch of sweetness.

If you have never made a bread with cream cheese yet, I urge you to give it a try.  The cream cheese really turns out a moist and creamy crumb.

The addition to the smashed potatoes with the durum and Kamut flours resulted in a moist, flavorful bread with a moderately open crumb.  This one is perfect for grilled bread, panninis, and simply with some olive oil or butter.

I made this bread last weekend after my return from my business trip to Germany.  I wanted to try changing up my method for mixing the porridge bread a bit to see if I could get a better result.  Since I'm home today enjoying the blizzard that's hitting the east coast I finally had some time to post.

For this bake I added some toasted almond flour and fresh corn to rolled oats and barley flakes for the porridge.  I used a mixture of several whole grain flours which were all freshly milled.

I asked my wife to buy me a few bannetons for Hanuka and she bought me enough to start a bakery :).

The first one I used was a square shape.  I at first was going to use the square one and a batard shape but after dividing the dough realized I needed to use all of it to fill the square version.  After combining the two dough's together I probably degassed them a little too much which resulted in a tighter crumb than expected.