Blog posts

I was inspired by Syd's bake to try my first Pain de Campagne.  I wasn't happy with the first bake, although my husband really enjoyed the taste and texture of the bread.  It was extremely light and made great sandwiches. As I often do, I froze the other half of the dough to make at a later date, and I baked it today.  As usual, my second bake from the frozen loaf turned out better than the first bake from fresh.  The first loaf didn't get much height, but had good crumb. The second loaf had much better oven spring and more height. Both had excellent, tangy taste.

Lucy has been gathering up ancient grains like farro and einkorn and Kamut and other allowed newer organic heirloom grains that are being replanted in small quantities in Arizona like Desert Durum, Pima Club and Sonoran White.

I've been avidly baking and reading this site for 6 months now, so I thought it was finally time to join. This week I baked a 50/50 levain using my new liquid levain culture as well as a test batch of baguettes to propare me for an upcoming production for a winery (My town has like 5,000 people and none of them can bake- well none except one:) . Anyways, my levains have usually been going flat inexplicably out of the refrigerator; any tips on how to make a wet dough hold up after removing from a basket?

I had commented on doing this awhile back. I kept feeding my levain intill it reached 1200g. Pulled 200 off and added salt to the rest. Hydration is around 65%. Not totally sure since I just went by feel and it felt about 65. Bulk ferment at room temp then shaped and into the fridge for a cold proof overnite. It has a nice fruity smell from the levain being at a young stage and having a meal of barley from this past weekends bake. Its cooling now and I will cut into it after work.

So I wanted to make cinnamon rolls. And I wanted to make sourdough dinner rolls. And I wanted to learn to paint bread. And I love baking, but I can't do it every day. Then inspiration hit, and I did it all at once. These have sugar in the filling, but just a touch and they aren't so sweet that I would call them a dessert. The raisins were soaked, so they are soft and yummy.

After bookmarking it more than a year ago, last weekend I finally got round to making Karin's Saatenbrot.  It turned out really good and was made extra special by the freshly ground bread spices which I roasted and ground up.  Not everyone in the family liked it, though.  They thought it too heavy and too strongly flavoured.

I'm having a good time baking my way through "Bread" by Jeffrey Hamelman. Here are three Hamelman formulas I tried recently.

It all started off with tasso, potato and egg breakfast burrito smothered in red sauce with cheese.

Then it took nearly the whole day to get dinner ready to go.

The rice looked god br=efire being cooked.  The pinto, purano & black bean refried looked fine before mashing.

A bit of catch up today on some Spring baking, starting with Irish soda bread for St. Patrick's day.  The recipe couldn't be easier (especially when compared to all the levain breads I play around with these days), and is a family favorite every St. Patrick's, and this recipe is one I picked up from Elise Bauer's great blog some years ago.  (I like the added raisins).