Being a 3-minute drive from Seven Stars Bakery here in Providence meant that I essentially stopped baking (other than the occasional buttermilk biscuit or cornbread) for 2013. I've resolved to change that for 2014, and have already made my first loaf of 2014 (Reinhart's transitional wheat sandwich bread).
Happy New Year (a little late) to everyone!
I'm continuing with the theme of 'corn' this week. This time, I'm starting with a 50/50 mix of Heartland Mill's organic blue and yellow corn. It took me a little time to get the mill dialed in for the coarseness I was after -- and I ended up sifting out roughly 50% of the meal, leaving me with true grits (and a bunch of corn flour for my next loaf of bread).
Saturday was pickup day for Pioneer Valley's grain CSA. I am really impressed with the variety and quality of the grains and beans we got. I'll do a more extensive post on what we got later, but here's the first cooking effort. I used the same recipe from my blue corn cornbread entry, using Red Llamas Wheat and Mandan Bride Corn.
Round one of this fight can be found at this blog post.
The problem I had the first time was insufficient hydration. I certainly solved that problem...
I changed a bunch of things around this time, resulting in a far superior flavor (IMO), but going completely overboard on hydration to the point that it was more like ciabatta than bread. Here's what I did:
Last week I finally found the elusive box that had my DLX bowl & paddles in it. Although my KA makes an appearance here for its whipping prowess, it has now been relegated back to the pantry until I next need it for grinding meat or extruding pasta. I've really been enjoying Hanne Risgaard's Home Baked: Nordic Recipes and Techniques for Organic Bread and Pastry. It has some great looking recipes, many of which use grains other than the standard wheat.
I just ran across http://www.localgrain.org/csa, and have signed up for a share. I'm excited to try out some of the heirloom wheats. More info in December when I pick it up.
The oven that was in our new house was pretty much the cheapest exposed-element electric that they could find when they did the kitchen remodel pre-sale. We replaced it with a Frigidaire FPEF3081MF, from their 'professional' range. It's my first glass-topped unit, and my first convection oven (sadly, no steam). While I still can't find the (in a box somewhere) stuff I need for breadmaking, I used it last night to roast some potatoes and carrots and a pork tenderloin.
Just to prove that I still do actually bake -- here's a sourdough-only version of PR's whole wheat sandwich bread from WGB. Instead of using yeast, I let the sourdough take over. The initial fermentation was 4.5 hours, the final banneton proofing was 3 hours.
And let me just say I really, really, like the Brod & Taylor proofer.
My wife has an offer for a tenure-track position in Providence. Anyone from there that can tell me a little about it? We'll probably be moving in June/July...
