JonJ's blog

With all of the discussion around biga on thefreshloaf lately, I thought I'd owe it to myself to faithfully make Abel's 90% biga bread which has become one of those famous recipes here. This time I tried to make it exactly as per the recipe. In the last month I've tried Rene's idea of a 50% biga with sourdough, and I've also tried a similar idea of a long 24 hour fermented biga made with sourdough at 90% biga.

It is amazing what can be done with faux substitute ingredients nowadays. I've previously had some bread and rolls made by a local 'low carb' company specializing in keto products called "We Love Low Carb" and the baked goods product range is truly outstanding -  bread (sourdough and CY), buns, bagels, pies, pitas, wraps, pizza bases, and why not have hot cross buns as well!

I'm always into exploring what makes products tick, and this bake was mostly about learning more about how these modern miracles of food technology work.

There is a post from the long distant past (2017) on this site, by Wendy (Lazy Loafer) describing one of her bread tasting open house experiments where different sourdough loaves were made each with a different flour making up 25% of the flour.

This bread ticks a whole bunch of health check-boxes for me and my ravenous teenager who is into healthy eating - whole grain, not wheat, and lots of fibre from seeds.

Foodgeek (Sune Trudslev) has a great description of this recipe with a matching video. He even has some fun suggestions of toppings you can use to make open sandwiches (smørrebrød) including, of course, smoked eel.

When I'm in the mood nothing beats a fresh chewy bagel and for me this can be one of the most satisfying breakfast or lunch breads. I know some people aren't so into bagels, but I just think that (maybe) they've never had a great boiled bagel that came out of the oven a few minutes ago.

A few years ago, Dan Ayo posted here about his experience with using chocolate malted barley from the brew shop in a bread. It made a big difference to the colour of the bread and the flavour of it too.

If you think about it, the spicing used in falafels (cumin & coriander, garlic, cardamom...) is like a recipe for a bread spice. The thing is though, how would you put a falafel into a bread. Home made falafel mixture, with freshly minced chickpeas, fava beans or lentils? Even better still why not use a box mix which has already been dehydrated and they've done part of the work for you already!

When it comes to omelette fillings the combination of miso paste and hummus is complementary and comforting, although I suspect I'm the only one who tries something like that with their eggs. And, it is true that miso, and hummus, when spread on hot buttered toast are simply delicious. So, my thinking was that together they could make for a great combination in a bread, even if it is difficult to imagine!

Sourlotti by Abby has a great way for making an 'oat porridge' bread that has worked out well for me before. I think it might be the amount of butter in the soaker preparation that makes it work so much better for me? In any case, for this loaf I decided to eschew the butter and replace it with coconut oil which has been working very nicely for me as a substitute for butter in other recipes too like hamburger rolls.

Derek and Gavin have been baking very interesting breads with (sweet) lupin flour lately. The promise and attraction of these breads is, to put it in Derek's words, "..taste delicious not too overpowering very light in mouth and stomach afterwards..." and "completely devoured in no time!".