The competition at this year's Leavenworth County Fair bread division was sparse. As I posted a few days ago, I entered a sourdough and a horiatiko psomi loaf. Because place ribbons aren't handed out for the entrants' self-esteem, I'm pleased that both of my loaves won blue ribbons.
Sourdough
Horiatiko Psomi
At our 4th of July family picnic, my spouse's cousin told me the hotel he worked for was looking for a baker. They needed someone quickly and he thought I'd be able to get in. He arranged for an interview the next day! All I had on hand was some lavender rolls that I had just made so I brought two of those along with me.
Hi from Timisoara! This bread is adapted from Hamelman's book, page 172. A couple of weeks ago while making this bread, I posted a question on forum, link here. The dough felt very stiff, even though I increased the hydration a little over 74%. I omited the yeast from the recipe, and I adapted the fermentation time.
I spent some time in the kitchen this weekend. I was baking bread and establishing a separate starter that wouldn't see the inside of the refrigerator until the last loaves were done. There was also a fair amount of cleanup after the flour flew. The first loaf was out of the oven on Friday morning was another attempt at an Anadama Bread that turned out well, just not too open in the crumb.
I baked Sicilian Semolina Bread from D T. DiMuzio's book 'breadbaking' tweaking the formula and fermentation of the biga to adjust to my time schdule for wfo baking. I also made a fresh peach and blueberry Breakfast Tart with a Pate A Foncer crust and Almond Cream from M. Suas AB&P book with some tweaks again with ingredients and for wfo baking. The pizza's where Margherita pizza and a fresh homemade pesto sauce and shrimp pizza. I baked the pizza's in a very hot oven. When baking pizza fast apx. 2min.
This weekend, I made two of the pains au levain from Hamelman's Bread - The Pain au Levain, which Hamelman says is typically French, and the Pain Au Levain with Mixed Starters, which is made with both a white liquid starter and a rye starter. This bread also contains some whole wheat flour in the final dough.
Pain au Levain
Loosely based on the formula for Le pavé d’autrefois
(Old fashioned slab) in the book, Le Pain, l’envers du décor (Bread, behind the scenes) by Frédéric Lalos.
His version used commercial yeast and a poolish.
Ingredients:
Levain:
100% hydration fed with KA Bread flour – 300g
Soaker:
Water – 564g
KA Whole Wheat flour – 107g
