Blog posts

Challah and I have a history.

When I was 15, I tried making my first bread. Having watched my mother (but never having helped her) since I was little, making bread (particularly oatmeal brown bread) from scratch, I figured it would be a snap. After all, I was able to pick up my mother's cookies and cake recipes with no problem, so what's so different about bread?

I was about to find out.

In honor of National Pretzel Day in the US (yesterday):

I came across this recipe in paper and thought it was worth a try, all the ingredients make this one a pocket full of flavour, which I am sure you will enjoy.

I try my best to explain where and why I deviated from the original recipe with bold and italic letters...

Una bella gita a Berlino ... e non potevano mancare alcuni dei migliori forni Berlinesi. Una grande città perfetta per i ciclisti come me, bici, bici, bici, segale, segale, segale ... tanti chilometri e lo zaino sempre colmo dell'inebriante profumo del pane di segale. Portare mattoncini nello zaino non è il massimo per girare in bici ma ne valeva la pena.

Recently Andy posted on his Pain Au Levain with Light Rye.   http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/23199/pain-au-levain-light-rye-flour  His formula was quite similar to something I had tried awhile ago http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/22372/sourdough-white-rye with a major difference: the percentage of fermented flour, which was more than double what I had used (33.3% rather than 16%).   I decided to try Andy's approach.  I followed his directions with the fo

I was amazed how wheat germs enhanced bread flavor when I made David (dmsnyder)'s famous SFBI miche a couple of months ago. I liked it a lot that I wanted to try making more breads with wheat germs.

Well, I can be easily distracted with other baking projects, bread ideas, new books, etc. Now, two months later, I finally got the chance to make a plain sourdough with toasted wheat germs added. 

Ecco l'ultimo pane con Buratto (solo lievito naturale liquido). Il precedente è stato un clamoroso fallimento, si poteva mangiare ma ...

Here tha last loaf with Buratto flour (only liquid levain). The previous one was a failure, I mean you could eat that loaf but ...

I am very pleased with my oven spring and grigne and all that business, so here's a new blog post! This is a trifle underproofed, but I rather like the dramatic look of the thing.

 Poolish:

1. 1/2 cup medium rye flour
2. 1/2 cup bread flour
3. pinch of yeast

Let sit out overnight (8-12 hours, more if it's cooler, less if it's warmer)

Dough:

I made a loaf of SF Sourdough for an Easter brunch, following Peter Reinhart's recipe in his book Artisan Bread Every Day.  In the past I've had extremely good luck with Reinhart's SF  Sourdough recipe in his other book Crust and Crumb but my supply of "mother starter" was a bit low and the recipe in Artisan Bread Every Day only calls for two ounces while the one in Crust and Crumb asks for .  Besides, I've been wanting to try the recipe in Artisan Bread Every Day anyway.

Hello,
I tried making sourdough semolina this weekend, after getting some pointers and help from Franko (Thanks, Franko!).

I mixed up a batch of dough, enough to make 4 big loaves, and was happy to have this opportunity to practice scoring.



The scoring on the top loaf was on a whim, wanting to see how diamond scoring would look on a batard.