madisonbaker26's blog

Maurizio's Country Sourdough With Less Levain & Longer Autolyse

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This bread was a challenge! My flour felt thirsty at the beginning, so I think the hydration was bumped up to about 83% and easily the highest hydration, mostly white flour bread I've worked with. Bulk fermentation was much quicker than usual and I overproofed it by a bit. Even with a generous dusting of rice flour, it still stuck to the banneton quite a bit. 

Despite all of those challenges, I'm really happy with the taste of this bread. I'm going back to basics for the next bake, so I can get more practice at a hydration level I'm more comfortable with. 

Cheers!

After an 8 year bread baking hiatus...

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I think I've still got it!

Wisconsin's safer at home order has got me baking up a storm! Huge thanks to dabrownman for his NMNF starter method. 

I won't share the first loaf...we'll call that tasty (but ugly) practice.

My whole wheat w/ flax meal was an experiment very loosely based on a recipe from Tartine No. 3. It was my first whole wheat loaf and was a nightmare to shape, but it turned out great!

First rye loaf!

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After putting my bread baking on hiatus, I decided to return and try out the 47% rye from Wild Yeast Blog.  It's my first rye loaf, save for the major disaster I made several months back.  I ended up finding the dough relatively easy to work with, which definitely surprised me.  It's also my first time trying out a chevron cut, so I'm looking forward to practicing that more.

UPDATE: This bread is awesome!  It's got a pretty assertive rye flavor for only 47%, it's quite tangy and a little sweet.

 

65% hydration baguette surprise!

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After a rather sad attempt at a 75% hydration baguette, I decided to spend a lot more time practicing boules and batards with Susan's Norwich Sourdough loaf.  I finally gained enough confidence to try my hand at baguette shaping, but I wanted a lower hydration dough to work with as I still haven't quite gotten the knack of handling high hydration doughs without making a huge mess.

Madison Sourdough Shaping Video

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I was lucky to snag a spot in one of Madison Sourdough's bread classes recently and I thought I'd share a video that the co-owner/head baker put together.  Unlike a lot of videos I've seen on the internet, his batard shaping technique seems to be a little different and there are also a couple unusual shapes he demonstrates (such as the fendu and the tabatiere).

Enjoy!

http://madisonsourdough.com/news/shaping-techniques/

First miche and 2nd sourdough loaf

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After a long time being intrigued by artisan bread baking, I finally decided to give it a go.  I think I got it from my father, but I usually dive in head first and think "go big or go home."