Blog posts

I’ve been away for the last couple of weeks due to an impromptu trip to Oklahoma City for a horse show and then another trip to Las Vegas where my daughter ran her second half marathon. She did amazing finishing well in the top half even though she hadn’t trained for 5 weeks due to an arthritic flare.

It feels good to get back to baking. A friend requested a loaf with whole grains. So some oat porridge, some Fed Fife, some Einkorn with a touch of honey and butter!

Recipe 

Makes 3 loaves 

Fattoria degli Usignoli in San Donato in Fronzano, Tuscany. Spectacular Tuscan scenery and only thirty minutes from Florence by train. This will be our 10th year at Fattoria and will actually be our 17th course there. The 5-day course will run from Saturday 2 May until Wednesday 6 May, 2020.

Hi Everyone.. we're going to see a friend for dinner this weekend and I'm going to bring dessert. But it's complicated.. I need to bring something that is vegan, gluten free, has no dairy, peas, corn or wheat.. I could pass and bring a salad but figured that someone on the board has an idea..  I thought I could make a toffu based cream cheese pie and make a non-gluten free graham cracker crust, but any other ideas?  I've never done that before an am not sure how good the toffu cream cheese would taste.. Thanks.. frank!

Hi, so this is my 6th round of baguette baking. Overall, much much better oven spring and crumb than before. I think the next big thing to work on is my scoring technique. I documented the process pretty meticulously this time, so let me know if you spot anything I can improve on. Thanks! Recipe is at the bottom of the post.

Photos

Despite only moderate success with my previous squash loaf, I decided to try again! I upped the hydration to 65% this time (not including liquid from the squash). I roasted the kabocha squash and pureed it and incorporated so that the dough was 40% squash, 2% salt, 70% organic stone-ground T85, and 30% KAF, 20% levain. I also added a bit of honey. 

During the lamination, I turned half of the dough into squash/walnut/raisin/cranberry and the other half into squash/cumin/coriander/chipotle chili powder rolls. 

I'm really loving purple bread!  I've made a similar bread a few months ago, but this time I decided to also add freshly ground purple corn.  I also used Kamut instead of the previously used Spelt.

I was very happy with how this turned out.  The crumb was semi-open, nice and soft and flavorful.  This one is a keeper and worth trying if you dare.

Some things are worth repeating.  Horst Bandel's Black Pumpernickel from Jeffrey Hamelman’s Bread is solidly in that camp. 

We had arranged dinner with friends who will move away soon. During that conversation, I offered to make a bread for them as a going away gift.  Since they enjoy dark, hearty breads, I knew a rye bread was in order.  It took a while to peruse various recipes in several books but Bandel's pumpernickel kept drawing me back.  

Nobody warned me and I didn't see any labels regarding this when I bought flour and basic baking equipment. They really should have......

Last night I told my housemate that I had been feeling really strange all day. I have various medical conditions relating to childhood cancer, so straight away he offered to take me to hospital. My reply was and what exactly  do I tell them ? I'm an addict with withdrawal symptoms.....