Blog posts

First, I can mis remember the amount of flour I'm measuring and end up at 72% hydration instead of 70%.

Then I can set the levain/flour/water to pseudo autolyse for 30 minutes, get an urgent call and come back to it 1.5 hours later.

Then I can start to work the dough, remarking how much slacker it was than last time and realize, after 15 minutes of slap and folds appearing to accomplish nothing, that I forgot the salt.

Month number two, a French classic sourdough - less exciting than I would have expected, but difficult enough to keep me interested. 

Full recipe and thoughts on my blog here

Hi Everyone,

First post from a long time lurker. This site has been such a wonderful resource for years and I thought that I should finally contribute something to the community.

A puff paste latticed blueberry tart.

1/1/2015 - New Years Eve Pizza

1/2/2015 - 50 % Whole Grain Sprouted 8 Grain SD/YW with Japanese Black Rice & Seeds

1/9/2015 - 50 Percent Whole Sprouted 16 Grain SD with Lake Havasu Desert Magic IPA

Hello everyone:  I have been off-the-grid for some time while I was traveling, as we don't have the best internet access when we are in the UK.  I will have to catch up on everyone's bread posts while I was away.

In keeping with Lucy’s recent bread theme of ‘all things sprouted’, we continued with another variation of a multigrain bread  with sprouted  spelt, rye and WW.  The sprouted grains were 25% of the mix this time but there were other changes too – aren’t there always?

The autolyse with the scald

I promised Varda that I would practice brioche a tète (just doing my bit to make sure the terrorists lose…) and my word is my bond. Sometimes it takes years to get your money but that’s how bonds are.

Anyway, my last batch was pretty enough to do a write up and take some pictures (still not my thing).

Since I can’t both shape and take a picture, you should refer to Varda’s blog (someday I'll figure out how to paste a link..) on the topic of brioche to see photos of me shaping. The basics don’t change, but there are things the pictures don’t show. And so, a list:

 I made this loaf before I left for my trip to China but didn't have a chance to post it until now.  It used freshly ground sprouted Durum flour and freshly ground & sprouted Whole Wheat flour along with some KAF high protein Sir Lancelot flour.

This bread turned out as good as I could have hoped for with the only thing I would change being to use a higher percentage of the sprouted flours.  It had a nice earthy flavor from the sprouted flour combo with a mildly open crumb.

I baked Eric's Favorite rye for the first time today, on account of there might be some corned beef in my near future. After only 35 minutes proofing, my finger poke test revealed one loaf seemed really ready to be baked and I was worried about waiting for the other one to catch up since they were proofing on the same piece of parchment. The kitchen was quite warm as the oven was on full tilt. As you can see in the photos, the one one the right had a pretty explosive reaction to the steaming oven...that was the one that seemed like it wanted to wait another 15 minutes. 

Work has been intense and crazy. So I was thrilled when the executives decided at the last minute to build in a little break in the project timeline. As luck would have it, the break was the same week as the Viennoiserie 2 class at the San Francisco Baking Institute (SFBI). Viennoiserie 1 is offered a few times a year, but level 2 is offered only once a year. I wasn't able to take level 2 last year since it was fully enrolled when I tried to sign up, so I was happy to attend this year.