Blog posts

    I made this bread because my whole family love Italian food and baguettes and homemade sun-dried tomatoes are just heaven! I dry them in my oven and soak them in olive oil with Italian spices. I use them in everything and one day I heard someone was using them in bread and I designed this recipe so I could put everything I love in it.

I'm a "newbie" to baking, got Reinhart's "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" for 2012 Christmas gift which seems to be a great book for beginners.  Reinhart says '"You can keep this (Pate Fermentee) in the refrigerator for up to 3 days ...".  If you are not going to use it until 4 days should it be frozen in that first three day and then unfrozen, or just go the 4 days in the fridge?

Springtime is outdoor time.  Meaning less baking time :-(.  So I'm pleased to have worked up this 36h labor-lite levain.  It has very satisfyingly complex flavor, surprisingly light crumb and an irresistible crust when baked boldly.  Prep is facilitated by using the same flours (a modified Rubaud mix) for both levain and dough.  Many thanks to Ian(ArsP) via PiPs for novel (to me) process pointers.

Click the table below to go to a working Google spreadsheet

I make another batch of the Hokkaido Milk Bread with Tangzhong this weekend, this time adding 2 cups of soaked sultana raisins.  

That was two cups of raisins before soaking. After soaking it was more like 3 or 3 1/2 cups, which was a lot of raisins. I was afraid it was going to be too much and really weigh the loaves down, but they still rose quite nicely.