Blog posts

After seeing Dwayne’s Mice Bake I had to do one ….eeeerrrr…..two and throw in a free pumpkin for them to guard.  Instead of pumpkin, we roasted some sweet potato to get rid of as much water as possible.

The dough was leavened by a poolish, enriched and sweetened with added pumpkin pie spice to bring out the Thanksgiving smell in the house as they baked.  I’m starting to get in holiday mood even though it is more than a month away.

I'm a huge fan of Inside The Jewish Bakery, by Stan Ginsberg and Norman Berg.  Today I had a taste  for  a rich white bread, and so I decided to bake up a couple loaves of the Vienna Bread (Vinnerbroyt.) It is described in the book thus:

"This sweet, enriched loaf has a lovely open crumb and soft texture. In the Jewish bakeries, it was used for sandwich loaves and, when left to ferment for 2 to 3 hours, for kaiser rolls." 

It sounded like just what I was after.

Ah yes! First ever blog also!!!!!

I started my adventure sometime in March/April this year with a wish to re-produce a bread like the rustic artisan loaf made by a bakery in a nearby town called Knysna. Trouble was, it's a 45 minute drive......... for a loaf of bread? I don't think so -.

This bake was based loosely on Norm's onion buns recipe and hey, the way the buns lined up in the Lodge cast cooker looked somewhat like the Olympic logo. I soaked 2 Tbs dehydrated onion and 1 tsp dehydrated garlic in boiled water until reconstituted, then used the resulting water for the mix and the onion and garlic for topping mixing salt and oil as per nbicomputers - I think. I used about 20% white levain, forgot to add the egg, but used lots of malt syrup and sugar . . .

In September I offered this challenge to my fellow TFLers: to recreate an ancient grain bread I had enjoyed during my recent stay in Potsdam, in Cecilienhof Palace, where Churchill, Truman and Stalin met for the Potsdam Conference.

Several of you rose to the occasion, and came up with your own versions of this interesting bread.

I saw this great video of how to make Swiss Mice by Christopher Bruehwiler on YouTube.  You end up with these rolls that are in the shape of Mice.  The video says to use a sweet dough to make these.  The first time I made these I used my standard sweet dough and they turned out OK.  They tasted fine but they did not keep their shape as well as I would have liked.

My interior tasted wonderful.  The exterior needed to be scraped and scrapped.  I think that the loaves could have over proofed in the fridge.? there was so little rise, no ear at all.  The loaves appeared quite brown before I removed the lids of my Dutch ovens. This is my first hybrid dough.    The bread was very tacky when working with it.  This is KF Pain De Campagne.  The bread did stick to my bannetons.  The joy of a novice not flouring enough! 

Hello everyone,

I believe I have made THE easiest fool-proof recipe for a nice wholesome loaf. I have made it a number of times, and it worked every time, like a dream!

Full recipe and more pictures to come on my blog here