JonJ's blog

Am still loving the yeast water! This was a repeat of Hamelman's "Swiss Farmhouse" from the community bake - used the same formula but with some minor tweaks. Said tweaks being that I used apple yeast water (fed using Granny Smith apples, originally started as a raisin yeast water); and replaced the raisins and walnuts by cranberries and pecans; the cranberries were soaked in boiled water for 20 minutes and so were slightly more hydrated than the raisins usually are.

Our recent babka community bake gave me a hankering for what my grandmother would call 'bulkas/boolkes/bulkes' - yeasted cinnamon buns made with milk.

They are simple, soft and buttery, and not too sweet or as complex as babka. Lovely to eat when spread with butter. We also like to have them as the perfect food for breaking the Yom Kippur fast.

Have been loving the yeast water. 

I've recently made Hamelman's Swiss Farmhouse bread from the community bake. So interesting and it surprised me that my somewhat fizzy water has such great leavening power.

The Tartine book has an interesting variation on the semolina bread called "Golden Raisin, Fennel Seed, and Orange Zest." I've got a friend who makes this bread, but substitutes the raisins for cranberries and calls this her "Christmas bread."

I used a 100g bag of cranberries which were presoaked in boiling water (120g after drainage).

Have never made a bad olive bread. And the same is also true for breads made with blueberries! And when blueberry is in the dough the bread gets a beautiful painterly effect.

Joy Ride coffee has a YouTube channel with what, for me, are quintessential quarantine videos. Videos often have a transporting sound track, and the visuals usually include beautiful tracking shots of Romanian scenery which have transported me out of lockdown. His quest for lacy crumb has been quite 'infectious', if you'll excuse the covid pun.

So, I was inspired by Dan's post to try a new drug, errr... ascorbic acid (vitamin C) in my baking. And I also did a little bit of reading up on this site and saw that Doc. Dough recommended a much lower amount than was used in Dan's original post - 20-30 ppm of ascorbic acid.