Blog posts

All white flour Sourdough at 75% Hydro this time.

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2013 The Fresh Loaf Dabrownman’s Blog

1/4/2013 - Panettone - The Last Bake of 2012

1/4/2013 - New Year's Day Pizza and Banana Bread Cupcakes

1/5/2012 - Hanseata’s Sausage Filled Puff Pastry with Cheese

I've been looking for a way to do sourdoughs in the middle of a working week without taking too much time out of a busy schedule. My first attempts involved stretching, folding and shaping the dough in the morning then cold-proving it in the fridge while I was at work for an evening bake, but this was problematic when I started a new job (community neuro-rehab) which demanded an earlier start. Here's the solution, needing only a bit of attention on three successive evenings. I'm using a 100% hydration wholemeal rye starter which I keep in the fridge.

The weather is finally cooling off here in Phoenix and for my hubby and I that means one thing: picnic season has arrived! And with it, my favorite part, a reason to bake picnic breads. 

I think I've had a fairly successful Crescia al Formaggio, although I'm not sure that the inside looks as it should. The bread was flavorful, even the sponge that the melted cheese didn't get to. 

I have been messing around with bun recipes trying to get one the girls would eat as opposed to the store bought ones.  This time Lucy finally got one to work and we had enough time to let them rise properly – the main problem with the slow rising SD ones.

Well got sick this weekend and missed the market bake but I had to feed the starter and decided to take the extra and make 2 builds, 1 wheat and 1 white.  I intended on a whole wheat bread but after looking at my inventory of flour I opted to make a loaf I do at my current job with some improvements.  Since I had both builds I just used them in combo for the one bread.  I wasn't quite sure how well this would turn out as it was only the first build off my starter which hadn't been fed in a few days but I proceeded anyway and with great success.  

Brother Glenn and I so often seem synchronized. Get this: I'm still baking bread too! But, then, I am not going to Scotland any time soon. 

This week, I took a break from my adventures in Forkishland and baked some old favorites.

San Francisco-style Sourdough with diamond scoring

  In hindsight I should have baked this bread as a Ciabatta since it ended up such a slack and wet dough.  While I was working on the final formulas and trying to figure out what hydration level to use for maple syrup and sweet potatoes I discovered that sweet potatoes are extremely high in water.  In fact they are around 85% water which I now know is the main reason why this dough ended up so wet.  Next time I bake this one I would definitely adjust the water content to get it down to around 70-75% hydration or cut down some of the sweet potatoes.

So, here i am again. I've been too lazy and tired to comment or blog; the weekend class is draining me off and i don't have much energy to bake anything.

First is Pasry. The last two classes (4 sessions) were on cakes which we managed to finish on time. As shown, we've baked using the foaming, creaming, and altogether techniques. A shining example of the altogether was the chocolate cake; the queen of all cakes which brought an end to our cakes lesson.