Blog posts

then you make your crust and top it and bake and eat...pretty simple...when you have all the right "stuff". I am so lucky that I have my Mom and Grandmom's iron skillets...nothing cooks like old iron. This one is 12" across the top and 3" deep. It is paper thin in the middle...Momma called it her chicken fryer. Her Mom used to put bread to soak on a back burner with warm milk and butter and sugar. This was during the depression .

Ian's post on Durum Rye SD got me going and I had a great time with my version. I used whey for all of the liquid. We make yogurt and had a batch not set  up so I had a qt of whey frozen. My starter is a rye so went with that. I followed all the other particulars except timing. I always retard shaped loaves and let them rise for 1 -2 hrs before I place them in the fridge and then bake directly from the fridge in 500 degree pots. Worked like a charm. These loaves are SO fragrant and the crumb is delightfully tender.

It wasn’t long ago that Yippee sent me an Oriental Pullman Pan.  I immediately put it to good use making a fine rye bread here 100% WG Rye & Wheat Sprouted YW/SD w/ Walnuts, Prunes, Cranberries & Sunflower that Michael Wilson liked.  Michael got to taste it when he visited LA a couple of weeks ago.  It is nice to have a fellow Fresh Lofian get to try some your bread -  especially one like that one.

This is a version of classic burger buns leavened using YW. The dough was enriched with just about everything I could think of,  DMS, butter, eggs and honey, that would make the buns soft and fluffy. There is about 40% whole grain component with a combo of Kamut, Spelt, Red Fife and white wheat. The rest is AP. The dough moved very quickly, almost as fast as commercial yeast probably due to warm kitchen temps but maybe due in part to switching the YW food over to peaches which seems to make the wee beasties very happy.

I've been directed to dabrownman's (which I've read as dabrownwoman until now...oh well) No Muss No Fuss Starter on multiple occasions, so I decided to give it a go.

I use wheat and spelt starters, so I stuck with those. The writeup by Dab is very good, but I like to compromise the main points in my own words when following a recipe. I went with the 101 g total.

66% hydration starter, make at 26-29º C (80-84 F)

Made this yesterday, eating it today :) :) :)

It includes tomato paste, fresh rosemary, Nigella seeds and black olives ..........

The taste is divine and I am really happy with the texture.  Nice open crumb, it makes fantastic toast too!

This is another version of bread I baked last fall.  I changed up the flour combination and used a Durum starter as well.

I was very happy with the moist crumb and the combination of flours made for a perfect rye sandwich bread.  The crumb was perfect for this style of bread and I would certainly bake this one again.

Formula

Just a thanks to all the bakers sharing tips and experience and enjoyable writing. The world is a stressful beautiful horrifying magical place. When I need a break from the bad and some bread inspiration, this has been my digital refuge for a couple of years it seems like. Just visited another popular social site right before bed looking for something lighthearted, but people feel compelled to share the most horrible things there even though they are available on every news website. No such problem here, and TFL (thank the friggin lord).

My starter has been alive for three months now and I've made a few loaves since then. I've learned about many things and gotten some experience with how temperature affects the entire process. Summer has arrived and I can expect 25-30º C (77-86º F) room temperature. I do have a basement which I might be using for overnight fermentation now. I need to measure the temperature, but expect it to be around 15-20º C.

I was surfing this site and saw the idea of 1-2-3 sourdough and thought "Why not?" since I had some levain left over from my other bake. I built up what I had left in two builds to 288 g of 100% unbleached flour starter.