Blog posts

My starters were fed more than usual the amounts of ‘food’ just before my husband and I left for a family emergency in eastern Quebec. This morning I mixed both liquid and stiff discards to make 100% hydration, then recalculated the recipe for a cinnamon raisin swirl loaf recipe from KAB. I’ll probably attempt this again (the hubby loves cinnamon raisin anything!) with ripe sd and some spelt flour.

Dough (all at room temp)

Did a variation on my regular recipe.  Swapped out all the WW for a mix of AP/Bread flour.  With all the non (low) gluten flours and the soaker, it's hard to keep this recipe from spreading flat when doing a free standing loaf.  This time I tried it with a round and seam side up.  I think it helped the loaf hold its shape with no score.  Spread just a bit on one side, but overall not too bad!

I've had a lot of compliments for this pic elsewhere so I thought it may be appreciated here too. 70% hydration, 20% wholemeal. I will expand on my method if anyone is interested.

This recipe is an adaptation of Maurizio’s cardamon sweet roll recipe.  The dough is enriched and uses a Yudane to gelatinize some of the starches to make for a more shreddable soft crumb.  After the delicious cake I made last week using yuzu lemon I was trying to think of other ways of using lemon and yuzu and thought about sweet rolls.  So these are filled with lemon sugar and iced with a yuzu vanilla cream cheese icing.  Let’s hope this works and tastes good. 

8”x8” square pan, lined with parchment.

You may know my frustration with this grain and trying to learn to bake with it at 100%.  With much advice and good helpful suggestions from many here, you know who you are so thank you, I think my fifth bake is the best so far without having seen the crumb.

Every month, starting January 2020, my bakery offers a subscription "Taste Tester Box" following a predetermined theme. We have three options: a bread box, a treats box, and an everything box. The everything boxes are huge and our subscribers get roughly four pounds of breads and the equivalent of 6 of our quarter pound+ almond croissants. Each month features two or three different breads and three different treats.

These two loaves were made from the same batch.  The boule did not rise as much and had a dense crumb.  The Batard had a fantastic rise, nice open (maybe too open) crumb.  The internal structure was very weak.  

King Arthur All Purpose Flour 73% Hydration

5.5 hours bulk fermentation time

Dough temp throughout 79 degrees

Shaping technique maybe a little too aggressive on the boule?

Any ideas, suggestions would be welcome.  :)

Finally got myself to do a rye bread. I didn’t grow up eating much rye bread and don’t understand it well. To me, it has a bad reputation of being a dense bread. But I do know that there can be a lot of flavor and nutritional value. 

my first attempt at it is only about 25% coarse dark rye (Bob’s Red Mill)  I think it turned out great!  Will up the rye content in the next version. 

I wanted to try baking a 100% (or close to 100%) white flour only hearth loaf as I don’t think I’ve done this before.  It isn’t perfect, the scoring was off center in a way that altered the ultimate bloom and shape of the loaf.  Despite the great blisters, I wonder if I allowed sufficient fermentation.  I had to cut final bench proof short because of life getting in the way of baking LOL.

Hey, fellow bakers!

I just felt so compelled to share a small moment I had in baking baguettes.