Blog posts

Raisin & rye loaf baked yesterday

We finally got our hands on some mozzarella di bufala when we visited a Whole Foods Market in Ann Arbor, MI this last weekend. The olives were yummy as well and from the "olive bar" at WFM. Can't wait to make these in the new brick oven! This one is just a variation, with pesto as the sauce instead.

My starter finally kicked into gear yesterday afternoon (started, Sunday 26th, March). It looked ready so I had a go at a lunch loaf. After a nice and quick first rise I shaped the dough and let it sit for a couple of hours before putting in my little proofer thingy. It didn't seem to be going well so I decided I was going to put in the fridge before going to bed. I forgot about it until I was on my way to bed when I noticed it was ready to bake, so on goes the oven at 12:30 at night. I took it out of the oven around 1:30 wrapped it in a tea towel and went to bed.

Pain L'Ancienne is easily one of my favorite breads. I'm applying this technique (delayed fermentation) to the following... 12 oz flour ( 4 semolina, 8 bread ) 10.2 oz ice water 1 tsp instant yeast 1 1/2 tsp salt I'm interested to see the flavor/texture of this method using the 1/3 semolina flour. I went with 85% hydration figuring the semolina will absorb quite a bit of water. I put it together last night, and it's been de-chilling for about an hour, so I plan to bake in another 2-3 hrs. I'll post pics when it's done. I also have a batch of pain sur poolish going just in case:) KP

I’d love to have one but since I don’t… I set out to determine if I could approximate the wood burning brick oven effect by baking the bread in my Cast Aluminum PK charcoal grill. I was hopeful because one of the nice features of the PK is the heat radiating effects of Aluminum. “Aluminum reflects 97% of heat rays

I had a go at baked yeast doughnuts that were not very good. The baguette here is from some dough left in the fridge on Sunday and baked Friday, it was not good. Today I thought I'd have a crack at a chocolate sponge roll using the recipe from my cake class I missed last Thursday. The roll didn't work out so I cut it in half and stacked it with some cream in the middle.

I've been making Sourdough breads for a couple months now from a culture I started myself with water and unbleached flour. The original inspiration and methodology came from OUTLAW COOK by John Thorne. There are two great bread chapters in the book: An Artisanal Loaf and One Loaf Three Ways. The former explores the mystery and delight of making bread from nature, the latter gives practical instruction.

This is just a draft; I have yet to try it. Using the amounts in brackets should theoretically make one loaf with approximately 70g fibre.

I started today with a generic sponge that I used to make my standard white loaf & baguette, flax seed plait and some choc-chip hot cross buns. I wasn't sure at first if it was going to work out today trying a sponge and bulk ferment. So no bread improver and less yeast than usual. I started mixing the sponge at 12:30 and the first loaf was into the oven at 4:00. Now that I'm using two cast iron trays on the bottom of the oven to which I add a tray of ice between them, I'm getting a very nice bloom. Despite the ugliness of the buns they were quite nice.

There's just something satisfying about eating a sandwich on bread you've made yourself. Soft, delicious bread. A sense of accomplishment. Anyone can go to the store and buy bread, and sometimes even more cheaply than I can make it for (I don't want to think about how much I spent in molasses on my last pumpernickel). It's funny, because not that long ago, it would have been completely commonplace to eat your own bread. We've become a society so dependent on having others do things for us. I'm a woodworker, and there's a similar satisfaction to working with tools you've made yourself.