Blog posts

"kaku-shoku" - a Japanese sandwich bread. This one is whole grain.

Like what Mini said, who cares if it comes with some birds or flowers : )

Got this pot for free from a friend yesterday and baked another sourdough to find out if clay pot can really substitute a Dutch Oven so that I can finally have some good bakes but most importantly, a good crust!

It had been almost 3 years since we did any serious Kamut bread baking.  It was June, 2012 when we did a 100% Whole Kamut at slightly more than 100% hydration.  Perhaps it was a little hopeful but the bread spread set in and it stuck to the basket too making for a really bad looking Fisbee.  Oddly the crumb was very open for a 100% whole grain bread.

I just made a Norwich Sourdough with lemon zest and poppy seed this afternoon. Without having a Dutch Oven, baking stone or pizza stone, I had to use what I have in my tiny kitchen. So I turned to my roasting pan and my WMF stainless steel stock pot. This is what I did.

I preheated the roasting pan and stock pot at 250 dc for 20 mins prior to baking. Spritz water onto dough. Used the roasting pan as base and the pot to trap steam since it is heavy. The result? No, I couldn't get the crust that I hoped for but it solved my problem with having a pale bottom bake.

When the weather gets warm it means dinners outside and bread from the grill. While the shapes can change based on the rest of the meal - they are mostly a basic pain au levain,

Part wheat and part rye levain - and then flour, water, salt. After so many loaves I still find the highest pleasure in pulling the most flavor out of those ingredients. A nice long ferment and the right mix of levain makes such a perfectly simple treat. The added flavors of the fire and outdoors is just enough to make the bread of summer a special treat.

I have been baking most of my life, the quantity and variety of baking has diminished as my family grew up and I became more careful about what I was eating. I was still baking bread in my usual way, using basic bread flour and commercial yeast, with little variety in flavour, shape or style. I make preserves every year, clementine marmalade, jam from a variety of soft fruit and indulge in the baking frenzy prior to the festive season.  I was however in a bit of a bread rut.

A wickedly indulgent bake, these are great fun to make and are insanely easy to eat! 

I have gone for a very tangy, fragrant strawberry flavour for the ganache inside and for the fondant icing.

The freshly fried crounts are rolled in a mixture of sugar and lemon powder - which gives an almost sherberty flavour. Just wonderful as it cuts through the richness of the pastries themselves!

Hey everyone!  I'm back from my big trip and I've got some stuff to share with you, mostly coming in the form of links to stuff I posted along the way on my phone. Lastly is a short video I made of the baking session I had in Moscow in the middle of May. 

Here are a bunch of photos I took, both personal and professional along the way.

In my last blog, baybakin suggested I try Peter Reinhart's SF Sourdough from Crust and Crumb. I looked at the recipe and actually, his timing works well with the summer weather as you end up baking in the morning. So I decided to try it out. This is the first time I tried retarding the final proof. I let it rise a bit like it said in the book and then put it in the fridge. I panicked a little when I observed that it kept rising for a while until it finally chilled down.

I received a note recently from Amy Goldman, who had attended one of my sourdough classes.  She and her partner, Sean Galloway, are in the process of planning a business combining a brewery and bakery in the KC area.  Right now they plan to call it The Brewkery.  Amy is already baking, using starter that I provided to each of the students.  It's a treat to think that my starter might be the base for a bakery's sourdough breads someday.

Paul