Blog posts

It doesn't get much simpler. The following formula expressed as baker's percents is used to refresh existing sourdough starter:

67% all purpose flour
33% cake flour
160% water

The above combination of flours is approximately 9.6% protein. A 50:50 mix of all purpose and pastry flour is a close alternative, as are several other flour combinations.

Calculate ingredient weights with a particular flour weight

Yesterday was like an early Friday, so I thought pizza would be fun. I improvised on this recipe, but about an hour into the process, I remembered that I had the pizza dough recipe from My Bread! Too late, so I decided, if I wasn't going to use Lahey's dough, I could still use some of his toppings. I decided to make the sweet potato pizza: sweet potatoes, onions, and olive oil. I also put together some pizza marinara with some leftover tomato sauce, some herbs, and some almond-parmesan. Here was the formula for the dough:

400g King Arthur All-Purpose Flour

325g water

My basic pain au levain coming off the grill. With the summer heat I have been working on this method for awhile.

On a recommendation being sent to Yeast Spotting

For Rosh Hashanah, my wife stopped at Chompies Bakery http://chompies.com/  to bring home a fine, non sourdough, snail shaped, raisin challah.  It was a leaner to the left with the inner circles higher than the outer ones – very tall.  Just beautiful, perfectly baked and delicious!  I can’t wait to have it for French toast this morning.

Seemed like a good day to try some challah.

Both leavened with wild yeast. Traditional round baked in a cloche.

5 braid baked on an outdoor grill.  Both delicious.

So I thought I'd try my Home brew beer in this bread taking all your previous comments into account.

English muffins.  I started with Gisslen's formula, but have to avoid milk, so take it out.  I am still using a very similar formula, but not with a straight dough process, rather adapted to sponge and dough.  I'm slowly increasing the hydration until I get a somewhat flat top during proof.  Next time I'll try 75%.  Gisslen includes 2.3% milk solids, which have an absorbancy of some value, maybe about 1:1. This is the second time I've used gypsum, the first time it accelerated yeast growth, replacing the calcium removed by the water filter.

When a friend showed up at my front door with a freshly picked pumpkin in her arms I didn't have to think much as to how it would be 'put to use'.  Recently I had found a recipe for a spiced pumpkin loaf on a food blogger's site (Annie's Eats) that had caught my attention.  While the original recipe didn't include cardamom, I somehow decided to include it in my ingredient list. I am glad I did.  I also used WY to leaven the loaves rather than IY…..I just can't resist tweaking recipes :*)