Blog posts

So you all know how I have been going on about pancakes (crumpets/flapjacks) and scones....... like a real ninny whining about a recipe...... Well here they are and I will never make ordinary pancakes/crumpets again!!!!!!!

This is the starter ready to go.

With the eggs and other ingredients added. Some baking powder in there and it frothed up like a puff ball!

Hi all! Been a while since my last post; didn't do many breads last month. Mostly pita and naan-breads, Turkish pizza etc. 

My sourdough culture had been dormant in the refridgerator for a while, so I decided to refresh it again. After half a day it was getting active again. 

The buckwheat, to my surprise reduced the grainy flavor of the bread relative to other whole grain breads. It had a nice nutty flavor. The loaf was dense but nice. I should've been more careful in following directions! I didn't follow keeping the oven open the last 5 minutes the crust became a bit too crusty!

Here's the link to the recipe on Bernd's Bakery, note the recipe first starts in German, followed by the English version. Great site! I was really impressed with the level of details on creating bread cultures - take a look!

This morning's bake was exactly the same as my last bake of this type:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/35521/yw-sweet-levain-boule-forkish-style

The only difference was trying to get my shaping tighter. Getting there, but still needs work. I will give another half loaf away and bake one off again tomorrow. People are always happy to receive my bread and making people happy makes me feel good.

Now that the days start getting colder it is so inviting for a day of baking.

Today I baked some bread for the week. Just one loaf, as I am alone and should not be eating so much bread ( very difficult to keep away from it ). However today I wanted to try my new microwave convection oven baking something. I wanted to see if it was possible to bake using the convection option only. I know that some people use convection oven on a normal bases but I have not read about bread baking and the instruction manual does not say much.

It's been a while since I've used a recipe for bread. Is this something that anyone else does? I know that as a baker, one should not avoid measurements, but sometimes it's just so much faster to throw things together. I would have stopped if I got bad results, but unfortunately, the recipe-less breads are quite nice. 

Two weeks ago, we made some cup cakes and muffins. Techniques like creaming (beating butter and sugar first), and all together were essentially what we used for cupcakes and muffins. Foaming technique was not used here, only for sponge cakes that require no soda or baking powder. This lesson wrapped up the baked goods section, and we were scheduled to start cold and hot desserts next.

I couldn't resist posting today's bake for a couple of reasons.  The first being that this formula has won lots of praise from those for whom I currently bake.  The second reason stems from the fact that it is a result of good old tweaking.  It was inspired by a recent post of hanseata's.  

Yes, baking instructors have homework, too.  And both of this week's bakes are geared to upcoming classes that I will teach at the Culinary Center of Kansas City.

I let nature take its course and instead of scoring the dough, I let the dough tear itself during oven spring- something like the Incredible Hulk's shirt. It saves me the shuffling around looking for my razor blade during that critical oven loading time, not scoring the dough saves me so many motions which- in my modis operandi- is performed like a magicians trick, sleight of hand style.