Blog posts

The past two Friday bakes were a 30% and 40% whole sprouted 7 grain sourdough breads.   So this wee Lucy upped the sprouted 7 grains to 50%hoping the crumb would still be open by following last weeks method. 

We used 14% pre-fermented flour for the 100% hydration bran and high extraction, sprouted 7 grain, 3 stage levain that still took 12 hours to be ready in our warm kitchen,  We did a 1 hour autolyse with the PH salt sprinkled on top.

Well friends I haven't baked much leavened bread for the last 3 months sustaining myself on southern style corn bread and buttermilk biscuits. Well I got a taste for some soft, pull apart dinner rolls and they turned out great!

I used a recipe from P. Reinhart's ABED and adapted it to my sweet levain:

68g liquid levain

236g milk scalded and cooled to below 90F

363g strong bread flower

1/2T kosher salt

39g honey, I slopped a little more

Just decided I would use this space to help document my various starter and bread experiments.

Starter: Have gone from spelt (not sure why I tried that) to whole wheat, now shifting to rye. As soon as the size of the existing batch is down a bit I will shift to the NMNF method to keep it going.

Bread: Slight shift here from must-be-done-all-right-now to spreading things out a bit. Basically, I am starting to plan ahead better. Start levain, then mix and rise overnight, fold, shape and proof and bake in the morning. 

I've posted these before, the Hamelman sesame semolina batards alfanso-style - meaning subbing out the very liquidy bread flour levain for my very liquidy rye flour levain.  Delivering 15% rye flour (all through the levain) to boost the flavor in this bread.  The composition of flours is; semola rimacinata 60%, bread flour 25%, and rye flour 15% @67% overall hydration.

New to artisan baking, I have been struggling with tough chewy crust that stresses my jaw.  .  Can someone recommend a recipe that uses only white unbleached All Purpose flour with a12-16 hour poolish and produces CRUST that is thin, crackly, and will not send me to my dentist.  I bake using a cloche.  Thanks much!  Jim Burgin

Beginner reporting in. I've been baking for a month now and I work with whole grains. Ideally, I'd like to see a sourdough whole wheat bread with a killer rise -- this (what you see above) is as close as I've gotten.

My bread baking over the Easter weekend was a disaster! I baked the loaves I was making too soon; I panicked when I saw how quickly they were rising in the fridge so I baked them that evening instead of waiting till the next morning. They didn't have great oven spring at all.

Then I was making cornmeal buns for dinner and I managed to burn the bottoms of all of them. My daughter came to the rescue and made Prospector Buns which were awesome!

Well, Passover is over, and leavened bread is back, with the vengeance. :-) Today's creation: sourdough multi-grain bread with seeds. I wish Internet had the ability to transmit the emotion which crunchy crust elicits while one tastes a slice with good salted Irish butter. 

I recently posted looking for ideas on solving my problem of not having a solid surface counter top. This is not normally an issue except when working with high hydration doughs. Then, it's such a big issue that I find it very difficult to make a decent loaf.

What didn't work:

A pastry mat: I have a pastry mat but it can get damaged by the corners of the bench knife and since it's not on a solid surface to begin with, it tends to slide around. Also, they're difficult to clean.