Blog posts

I have to practise making baguettes occasionally or I lose the mojo. Today was baguettes with poolish (Hamelman). They are the longest I can fit into my oven; I may have to drop off a few grams of dough to get them a bit thinner. I've put them into the freezer for the unexpected "drop-in".

Cheers,

Gavin.

Apologies that I have been negligent about posting or updating much here. Pandemic has meant I spend most of my day at my desk, in my apartment, working with content management systems. After 8-10 hours of that I just can't bring myself to do much more of this in the evening or on the weekend. 

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I made the Tom Cat Semolina from the last Community Bake again. 

My starter has been temperamental lately as I've been adjusting its diet so I returned to my roots with this one in effort to regain some focus. I still maintain a cool stiff starter but after switching from 100% rye I had some issues and began adding about 25% back. This is all because my latest attempts with desem included 20% PFF and I found that 20% rye was too overpowering to the flavor of the hard red I was using. So this loaf returns to my longish ferment with lowish inoculation and minimal handling.

I wanted to try the updated Tartine bread again from Jennifer Latham's IG post with the double fed levin and the delayed addition of the salt. The last time was a big improvement in my sourdough bread efforts so I wanted to confirm some things and get a better feel for it.

I've made this several times lately and it's now on the regular bake list. I wish I had discovered this years ago.

Cheers,

Gavin

Don't mean to bore anyone with similar posts all the time but I gotta keep track of progress.  These two loaves shaped out rather thin in the center which can pose some challenges getting the loaf to open up.  But, fine tuning the technique with my oven is getting finer and finer.  Pop them in at about 500F and now about 5oz of room temperature water for quick burst of steam.  Evacuate after 6 minutes.  At this point I am down to about 430F.  Around 10 minutes its dropped more again to about 420.  A two minute firing of the top element pumps the Temps anot

Door county Wisconsin cherry pie filling. Outstanding! This the cast iron pie iron from Uno Casa. Excellent heavy preseasoned. Perfect in every way! Cooked up hot crisp and delicious on the charcoal grill. We are taking it camping and did this run through effort in the back yard. 

I don’t remember how I stumbled on this combo but I must give Kristen Dennis, from Full Proof Baking, the credit for inspiring this version. 

Recipe 

Makes 3 loaves

Porridge 

100 g large rolled oats

200 g water

35 g Maple Syrup

30 g butter

Add-ins

200 g 50%  dark chocolate chips 

Dough

800 g strong bakers unbleached flour

200 g freshly milled wholegrain Durum flour 

50 g freshly ground flax seeds

This maybe the simplest recipe and something that always works for me. I’m posting probably almost the same recipe but different approach or methods every week, but this is the only way I can achieve consistency upon my bakes..

Recipe:

70g Whole  wheat

280g Premium Bakers Flour

260g Water ?

70g Starter(100% hydration)

7g Salt ? 

Method:

Mixer is used

-1 hour Autolyse

-30 minutes rest after mixing starter

-1 hour rest after adding salt b4 doing 1 S & F