Blog posts

I finally got close to where I want to be with ciabattas!

I was going to a friend's flat for an Italian dinner yesterday, so decided to bring a ciabatta, although previously I only had partial success with this style of bread. However Rus Brot has a video recipe for ciabatta, and so far each and every recipe of his have been a great success, so I decided to risk it. The video is unfortunately only in Russian: https://youtu.be/beEhMiwIaHw

Rosemary & Walnut Schiacciata From Living Bread by  Daniel Leader

This is the 2nd time making this bread and it was a hit both times. It has a wonderful walnut taste and combined with the rosemary and olive oil it is delicious.

Recipe and process are below.

Apparently this bread is also known as tourte Auvergnate.  It is a 100% whole rye loaf and mine was made without any commercial yeast although I’ve seen recipes that use it in as a sponge along with the rye sour.  Those who are familiar with baking rye sourdoughs know that they ferment very quickly.  From building the first stage of the rye levain until the loaf is out of the oven only took 18 hours.  However, you’re also likely aware that rye breads need time to “cure” after baking so I think they are best if you wait 24-48 hours before slicing.

We've eaten 8 of these Barbari breads in the last 5 days. Only thing is, both times I made these, there was a rush for dinner time, so I feel that maybe they were a lil under-proofed so they got very puffy during the bakes (or maybe I didn't press the dough enough during shaping). Also, I made them with onions and cheese on top!

Kimmicher, a large bun, weight about 200g, typical for the city of Reutlingen in Germany.

If you like caraway seed, you got to try this. The buns are truly fantastic.

The recipe is here: https://www.ploetzblog.de/2020/12/05/kimmicher/

I'll translate it into English if anyone would like to read it.

My first babka! I am not counting the one I tried last week that was a complete, greasy mess that never did a thing. That one was a yeast based recipe that I think was faulty from the get go, and to date is the only batch of dough I have ever just thrown out. 

I wanted to see how replacing 25% of the flour with whole red fife might affect the rise and the quality of this milk bread compared to my previous recent bake.  I thought 25% was a good place to start and if this is good I’d consider increasing that whole grain portion to 50-75%.  Whole red fife is actually a nice mild whole grain flavour without any of the bitterness I associate with some whole wheats.  Although it has good gluten potential, which you can feel while doing folds during bulk, it is fermentation intolerant.

Will post photos as able from my phone. Didn't have time to make baggies today but wanted to use this flour !! So made pizza. A wonderful experience. Unlike any other flour I've used in 40 + years of baking breads. 

1 1/2 c warm water

1 tsp ADY

1 tsp salt

2 tsp sugar

2 Tbsp EVOO 

It's that time of year again! Cooler weather means back to the kitchen for more baking. I've been gathering recipes and trying some different breads recently, with mixed results. My rustic country boule was a bit of a let-down, and so I'm in the process of getting my sourdough starter going again.

In the meantime, I came across this recipe for white bread that I thought looked interesting.

800g All Purpose Flour 9g Instant Yeast 100g Fine Sugar 7g Salt 4 Eggs ( weigh 65-67g each with shell) 180g Milk 60g Oil

This is my first post as my bread experience pales by comparison to so many contributors to the site. I feel that I really needed to share this. I have been looking for help here trying to get some guidance on how best to turn my new cheap Chinese pizza oven into a rockin' steam capable bread oven. So, after trying every conceivable trick found on this site and others ( except the pressure cooker hack)  I decided I needed to do something to make my bread making life easier and get scalded a little less often.