Blog posts

Mebake mentioned that I seemed to be a very busy baker of late and I knew that I had been caught with my dirty little secret.  I confess it isn't all me in my kitchen.  For the past 7 years, nearly 8 now, I have been fortunate enough to have a full time German Baker's Apprentice.  She is well trained and has an especially fine (if big) nose for what is good and has become my go to tester and taster for everything I make in the kitchen.  She is sort of short legged, so I have to get things down for her from the high cupboards, but that is small pr

As stated in a past blog[LINK]. I am taking things back to basics. I am going to do the same simple recipe and try and take in what I have learned from each bake, and improve on my baking skills.

So, here I go. I have not added anything to this recipe like last time. This is just going to be a basic loaf.

The recipe is the same:

3 cups of all purpose flour

2 teaspoons of yeast

2 teaspoons of salt

1 1/8 cup water

This is how I went about making this loaf:

After my go at the San Francisco Sourdough[Link], I though I would have another go with my sourdough but go in a more European recipe. I decided to go French and bake the Pain Au Levain, but the purist version, no commercial yeast used at all.

One thing I did fine with the san Fran loaf that it was not as sour as I would liked it to have been. So with this recipe, I decided to do the whole process over 4 day, the fourth day being the baking day. 

So here is my process, Day 01

I am on a roll and it is called the sourdough-juggernaut insane roll. I mean what else do you expect in a despondent economy like ours? For a miserable proletariat like myself, who is underemployed, partly circumstances/partly choice, what better way to spend your days than to bake up some bread.

A number of years now reading and posting here and the sentence that rings in my ears as the best advice I've ever had in home baking is Pat's "Get the fermentation right," which I guess could also be said as "Watch the dough, not the clock." Now that the rest of you have moved on to the nicely controlled environment of proofing boxes , I am left to my analog temperature probe and the vagaries of kitchen temperatures. So I've practiced on some basics, watching the dough.

so to put a long story short (and what better way to do it then photos?)

the result:

the recipe i followed:

Anyone who has seen my blog knows I make naturally leavened panettone often. I have tried a new recipe by Massimo Vitali which includes cocoa butter. The recipe also calls for milk powder which I don't keep, so I left it out. I made a few other adjustments with water and flavourings but other than that it's as described in the formula.

Finished dough.
 

As a follow up to a previous post here is how I make non fat Greek yogurt.  You can make it with any kind of milk you want but I am into non fat where ever possible.  Make your  yogurt cozy for 12 hours at 110 F by placing 2 folded in half kitchen towels over a heating pad set to high which is covering a wooden cutting board.  Get a large bath towel folded in half to cover the kitchen towels.