sadkitchenkid's blog

Decided to make a cake that uses sourdough as the only leavening agent so I developed this recipe inspired by pineapple upside down cake and blood orange and black sesame seeds in my pantry. This isn't a very sweet cake, you can adjust the sweetness based on preference by adding more or less of the orange blossom syrup.

Dough: 

550g KA ap flour

50g coconut sugar

7g diastatic malt 

65g milk

4 eggs

4oz butter softened

100g active starter

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Syrup: 

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

3 tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp orange blossom water

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Candied Orange Layer: 

1 blood orange very thinly sliced

1/4 cup sugar

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Mix all the dough ingredients minus the butter together in a bowl. I was able to just mix it all together with a wooden spoon and didn't need to use my mixer, but using a mixer would be easier here. Once all the ingredients are mixed, add in the softened butter and mix until the dough is smooth and resembles thick cake batter or very wet dough. Let the dough sit at room temperature for 2 hours then place in the fridge overnight. The next morning take the dough out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature. While this happens, prepare your pan. I used a 9inch aluminum pot. I buttered the bottom and placed a 9inch circle of parchment paper over the butter, then spread a then layer of butter over the parchment paper. Then I sprinkled half of the 1/4 cup of sugar over the parchment, placed down the orange slices, and sprinkled the remaining sugar over them. I didn't grease the sides of the pot because I wanted to dough/batter to be able to travel up/stick to the sides as it rose. 

After the dough comes to room temperature, pour it over the orange sugar layer and let proof until almost doubled in volume. This took about 3 hours in my kitchen. In the meantime, boil the syrup ingredients together for about 5 minutes and set aside to cool. When the cake is proofed, bake at 400F for 50 minutes or until a toothpick placed in the center comes out clean or a thermometer placed in the center reads 210F.  Take it out of the oven and let it rest for ten minutes then take a fork and prick the surface. Brush on some of the simple syrup and let that soak for about twenty minutes, then flip the cake out of the pot, peel the parchment off to reveal the now candied orange layer. Let cool and enjoy.

Happy Baking!

Fried up these donuts for a brunch and filled them with a citrus curd made using blood oranges and rose water!

Recipe: 

Levain: 

110g bread flour

35g starter 

15g honey

60g water

Dough: 

500g bread flour

2 eggs

70g sugar

15g salt

130g milk

15g diastatic malt (optional)

all of the levain

130g butter 

1 tbsp vanilla extract

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Filling: 

1 cup sugar

8 egg yolks

20g corn starch

2/3 cup blood orange juice + 2 tbsp rose water

pinch of salt

2 tbsp blood orange or lemon zest

10 tbsp butter

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Mix the levain ingredients together and let proof till active/doubled. Mix in the remaining ingredients and knead for 10-15 minutes. After the dough has come together leave at room temperature for 2-4 hours, or until doubled in volume)  (*in the meantime, make the filling) refrigerate overnight. The next morning take out the dough and divide into 16 circles of 1inch thickness (or divide into squares to save time). Let rise at room temperature till doubled in volume. For me this took 3 hours. Fry in 350F oil for about two minutes per side. Place each cooked donut on rack and once all of the donuts are done, toss them with granulated sugar. Let them cool for about 30 minutes before piping in the filling. 

*For the filling: 

Place all of the ingredients in a pot and cook on medium heat, mixing constantly until it thickens enough to coat the back of the spoon. Transfer to a bowl and refrigerate overnight. 

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happy baking!

This week I made some sourdough focaccia! One of them was plain with just olive oil, rosemary, and flaked salt, and the other was made into a tart topped with shallots, bird's eye chili, and rosemary, then brushed with jalapeno honey after coming out of the oven. 

The plain focaccia made it's way to a cheese plate along with some nordic bread that I had made as well. Good stuff. 

Happy baking!

I've been wanting to make a purple sweet potato loaf for a while now because purple sweet potato is my favorite kind of potato. In this bread, I used a TON of potato puree and a lot of cornmeal, and it gave me a really beautiful loaf. The oven spring on this loaf was amazing, but the crumb is dense and cake-like. The purple sweet potato gives off a really nice floral taste and the texture of the crumb is almost creamy. Tastes even nicer the next day.

I cut into while it was still a little hot, which disturbed the crumb pattern in this picture, but look at this color!

Recipe: 

400g bread flour

150g blue cornmeal

50g wholewheat flour

600g water

350g mashed purple sweet potato* 

120g starter (I used 100% rye at 80% hydration)

11g salt 

*the texture of purple sweet potatoes really varies from potato to potato. Some are starchy and crumbly/dry on the inside where they're cooked, and some are soft and a bit more moist. The large sweet potato I used happened to be very dry, so when I mashed it had the texture of wet sand almost so in my baker's percentage, I counted it as a dry ingredient, which is why I have so much water listed in the recipe. My original notes called for 420g water but when I made the dough it was SO dry I had to add an extra 160g water. 

I put 200g of the sweet potato in the blender with 420g of the water, and added it to the flour during the autolyse stage. Then I added the remaining 150g in after two stretch and folds so that little lumps of potato would be running through the loaf. 

This dough was a little difficult to work with and shape because of the relatively low gluten content (lots of potato, lots of cornmeal), but I loved making this loaf because of how beautiful all the colors were. 

*Edited: Decided to add some extra steps that I think were important to this bake!

1) Mix together water, flour, half of the cornmeal, and blended potato mixture mentioned above. Set aside for about an hour.

2) Add the starter and do slap and folds for about five minutes. Because of the little amount of gluten, during the mixing stage, the dough became very loose and slimy. Usually if a dough is super wet after slap and fold, it pulls itself back together if I let it sit for a few minutes to reabsorb, but this dough didn't do that as much, however, after a few stretch and folds over the course of four hours, it became firm enough to handle. I don't have a video for this specific dough, but on my channel, there is a video for a Carrot Sourdough which was about as wet as this one (also because of the disrupted gluten formation), and in that video, i demonstrate basically how I dealt with this dough and how I shaped it.  

3) Place the dough into a clean bowl and rest for thirty minutes before mixing in the salt and the remaining cornmeal. 

4) After 45 minutes, begin with stretch and folds over the coarse of three and a half hours. Before the 2nd stretch and fold, mix in the remaining mashed sweet potato. I did 1 stretch and fold every 45 minutes. By the third fold, the dough had nearly doubled, and it was relatively cold in my kitchen, so like any dough, keep your eye on the dough and not the clock. 

5) Pre-round the dough and let sit on the counter uncovered for 20 minutes. Dust with flour (I used coarse rye) and shape tightly. Place in a banneton and let proof. This loaf only needed about an hour and a half before it was ready. Since it was proofed before I was ready, I popped the banneton in the freezer for twenty minutes to give my oven some extra time to heat up. 

6) score and bake at 500F covered/steamed for 22 minutes then bring the temperature down to 450F and bake uncovered for 25 minutes. Let cool completely, maybe even wait till the next day before cutting into it.

Good luck and enjoy!

Happy baking!

So I'm sitting here typing this with a dent on the bridge of my nose from the safety goggles, and slightly tingly fingertips (shoulda worn gloves), and I know what some might be thinking: was using lye worth it? 

Well yeah duh. 

Here is the recipe video I made for them

:

Anyway, the pictures speak for themselves. I'll include the recipe at the bottom. 

Recipe: 

Levain:
230g bread flour
230g water
1tsp molasses
80g rye starter

Mix this first then let ferment for 8hours

rest of dough:
330g water
19g salt
710g bread flour

Lye bath: 

2.2kg cold water

4g lye

After the levain is ready, mix in these remaining ingredients, knead for 15 minutes,  and let ferment for about 6 hours. Then refrigerate overnight. The next day, take out the dough, and divide it into 16 balls. Let the dough rest on the counter covered for 15 minutes then shape into rings. Place the rings onto two baking sheets dusted with cornmeal and place a pizza stone or a couple of upside down baking sheets in the oven and preheat to 475F (have your oven preheating for around 2 hours). Let the rings proof while you prepare your toppings and the lye bath. It took my bagels 1.5hrs to proof. 

For the lye bath: Wear goggles and gloves and weigh out the water in a pot and then add in the lye. Place the pot on the stove and bring to a boil. Prepare your toppings. I did Flax & Fennel, Everything, Sesame, and Poppy, and spread them out among some plates (one plate per topping) Once the water is boiling/simmering, drop in your bagels (my pot fit 5 at a time) and boil for 1 minute on each side before placing on a sheet of parchment paper. Then take each bagel and dip it into its topping and place it TOPPING SIDE DOWN, back onto the parchment. When all of your bagels have been topped, using a pizza peel or baking sheet, slide the sheets of parchment onto your hot pizza stone/upsidedown baking sheet. Bake for two minutes, then flip over the bagels, placing the topping side up. Bake for another 18 minutes. 

Take out of the oven when golden brown, and enjoy. 

Happy Baking!

I've been infatuated with colorful loaves for a while now. These next two weeks I'll be making purple. Tonight was purple corn polenta, later this week will be purple carrot, and next week will be purple sweet potato!

I winged this recipe. About 70% bread flour, 20% polenta, 15% wholewheat, 15% semolina, 15% starter, 3% salt, and 79% hydration.

fun 13 second video of me scoring this loaf. It looks like a strawberry milkshake in the middle.

This is my first time attempting sourdough croissants, and my second time attempting croissants in general! I made these into mini croissants which is why they're not as "high".  I think they came out ok! When I first wrapped the dough around the butter slab to begin the lamination process, I realized that the butter slab was too cold so when I attempted to roll it out, the butter started breaking apart between the two layers of dough. 

You ever go into a baking project and the second something goes wrong you're like "oh whatever who cares, it's ruined anyway" and kind of half-ass the rest of the process? That was me upon realizing that the most important part of croissant-making, even distribution of butter, went wrong. So I didn't work as hard as I had intended to going into this.I now really regret that, seeing how decent these turned out. I'm definitely gonna try this recipe again and do it the justice it deserves!

The crumb is okay! They taste pretty amazing. I feel like the sourdough brings out the sweetness in the butter and makes the butter flavor so much more prominent? I didn't use a fancy butter, but it was still the star of this batch. 

Anyway, I developed this recipe based on a few yeasted croissant recipes online. 

Dough: 

470g all purpose flour
250g cold water
60g active starter at 100% hydration
31g dried milk powder
50g sugar
40g room temperature butter
11 g salt

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Butter slab:
320g butter

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Mix the dough ingredients together adding the 40g butter at the end. I used my stand mixer for this but it’d be pretty easy to mix by hand. Flatten out the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap or place in a plastic bag, and refrigerate for 20 hours. Shape the butter slab into a 19cm x 19cm square. Refrigerate till needed. When needed, take it out and let warm up enough for it to be malleable but not soft.

After 20 hours, take the dough out of the fridge and roll into a 26cm x 26cm square. Place the butter slab in the center, at a 45 degree angle to the dough. Fold the four flaps of dough into the center of the butter square. Lightly flour your work surface and the surface of the dough and proceed to roll out the dough into a 20 x 60cm rectangle. Fold letter style (into thirds). Refrigerate for 1 hour, rotate, and repeat two more times.
After the final letter fold, place the dough into the refrigerator overnight. The next day, take out the dough and cut it in half. Roll each half out to a 20 x 55cm sheet. Cut to into triangles, dock, and roll. Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and let proof until the croissants are puffier and a little jiggly. You should also kind of see the layers of butter. Make sure the croissants are proofed in a cool environment. I proofed mine at 70F for around 4 hours. I egg washed them (1 egg, splash of milk, a spoonful of honey) and baked in an oven preheated to 400F and baked for 20 minutes.

This loaf really surprised me! The carrot juice doesn't make it sweet, which was my fear. The recipe produced a nice savory and complex loaf. I added the turmeric and black pepper for the health benefits. 

I also filmed another video documenting the process! I added a soundtrack that my friend made for the video. She made the music using sounds from my kitchen (ie, the stove burner turning on, a knife against a cutting board etc). It's pretty cool, you guys should check it out! 

Now here come the pictures (you guys know how much I love my pictures haha),

I love how bright this bread is! Surprisingly, the orange color is much brighter in person than it is on color!

Happy baking!

The title is a mouthful I know. 

But wow this bread might be my new favorite.

I made a video showing how I made these loaves. It's pretty straight to the point, if anyone is interested in watching. Don't mind my pajamas lol.  

if not, pictures coming right up:

This bread came out so dark and rich....wow. Yes, new favorite for sure.

Happy baking!

My favorite bread of all time! I haven't posted in a while! I got a new job, but I quit so now I have all the time I want to bake all the bread I want!

I love this bread! There are no words for how delicious it is.

This batch was 35% wholewheat 10% rye 5% spelt. 87% hydration!