Blog posts

To anyone even casually glancing at the most bookmarked pages on TFL, Jason’s Quick “Coccodrillo” (sp.) Ciabatta Bread is akin to the great thoroughbred Secretariat running against all puny comers.  I’d been avoiding trying it out, for who knows why, but just this week adrianjm added to the list of those posting their version of the bread.  So, I guess it was gravity that brought me to try it out too.  And I did.  Twice in one day.

Weekends, the times that I do most of my baking, have been rather full of late.  There have been seminars to attend, a class to teach, a grandson's out-of-state (for us, not him) cross country meet to attend and all of the other "normal" stuff that makes up life.  Still, I've found ways to weave in some baking with the other things going on.  Posting here on TFL has taken a bit of a back seat to the other activities, though.

I just milled some fresh Durum flour and decided to sift it this time instead of using it whole.  Sifting made it closer to the KAF flour I used to use all the time for Durum breads.

To make this one interesting I added some fresh ricotta and mashed potatoes.  The end result was a nice open soft crumb but for some reason this one ended up very sour.  It does make great toast and grilled bread for sure.

A fine loaf.

I based it on a recipe that I found online that was based on a recipe from Dan Lepard and Richard Whittington 'Exceptional Breads'. It took a while for the orange juice starter to get going so it sat on the counter for most of the week. But it got there. Makes the best toast.

From top left, the obligatory weekly pulla braid, country blonde, apple, walnut, cream cheese bread and Italian semolina, sesame loaves!

I used a single batch of pulla dough to make both the braid, 60%  dough volume and apple, cream cheese bread, 40%dough volume. My goal with the fruit, cream cheese bread was to pack as much goodness into each bite as possible. Mission accomplished!!!

Happy baking!  Ski

I have been building my starter for about 6 weeks now, and I am finally getting the results I want.

Not that the previous breads were bad, they just lacked the sort of oven spring I was getting from Commercial yeast.

Standard Forkish Lean dough.

1st feed: 12 hrs with KAF whole wheat. 100% hydration, 50g 

2nd feed: 12 hrs with Unbleached Shepard's Pride white 100% hydration. 100g

Poolish with 100g starter + 450g flour, 100% hydration, 12hrs

Final dough: additional 500g flour, 244g water, 22g salt

Lucy was thinking ancient this weeks and was studying the oldest thing she could think of at the time – The Sun.  The Poor thing is middle age at 5 billion years old and has an appetite like nothing else around here.  It gobbles up 400-600 million tons of hydrogen a second to overheat our world but it will be doing the overheating thing much better in the future.

(Adapted from Blog titled, Sourdough Bread, Simpler by the author)

A Simple Recipe for Wild Yeast Starter:

I am really on a roll with the wholegrain baking these days.  With this Whole grain spelt bread I am using 100% whole spelt flour and taking all the short cuts possible to make it one of the easiest most reliable bread recipes I have ever made.  When its this easy, tastes so great there is no excuse not to give wholegrain bread baking a go.  Your digestion, mineral and vitamin uptake, aswell as your general health and taste buds will thank you for it.

A very tasty combination. I ground my own almond meal and added coarsely chopped almonds before the second rise. The second rise was everything I could ask for, but due to unforseen circumstances she was left out too long and had flopped back by the time she went into the oven. So it ended up too thick for a pancake and a bit too flat to be a bread. But this bread tastes so good that I will definitely mark it as a favourite and take more care with the timing in future.