Blog posts

This is true in bread baking, of course.  We are all more or less methodical, trying to get everything just right.   But everything is never just right.  Then, something inexplicably wonderful happens and the best bread ever known comes out of your oven.  And it’s either because you’re amazingly skillful, or pixies, leprechauns, angels or karma paid a visit.  In my case, I would bet it’s pixies.

The same is true in photography (that’s why they’re called “pixels”). 

Yesterday was a lucky day both for bread and photography.

This is my first TFL write up.

While I have only made some comments on posts within the last couple of months, I have been stalking the wonderful forums and submissions on this site since I started baking bread regularly, about four years ago.  I think a big thank you to the collective of the website is in order, if not something more.

I just refreshed my Yeast Water starter earlier in the week after returning home from a long business trip.  I have had great success mixing the Yeast Water starter with a traditional sourdough starter so I decided to follow a similar path.  To make things interesting and because I happen to love durum breads I decided to make a 65% hydration YW starter using only durum flour and for the

Background:       Stormy Queensland rain, a cyclone passing through

                            Vivid greenery against thick dark clouds

                            Cozy tearoom

The world out there is wet and blowy:

Flour, water, salt, time, and temperature. The right combinations of those variables, plus technique, make good bread.

Along with a few simple tricks.

I've learned how to make pretty good bread from this forum. This is the first of a set of posts describing a few of the things I've learned. Maybe they will help somebody new.

My fight against scurvy (not really) and the wintertime blues (really) by baking fruity things continued today.  This time I went for raspberries and made a Raspberry Cream Cheese Braid using the Blueberry Cream Cheese Braid formula on the site.

As many of you know, I've been fascinated with rye for years (am working on a book about it). Here's one of my faves, a wonderfully flavored, wonderfully simple Polish rye made with prunes. (pics below)

Yield: Two 21.5 oz./610 g loaves

I baked David's version of Pane Pugliese. I didn't have durum flour so I followed Peter Reinhart's suggestion in BBA and used 1/3 as much semolina. Otherwise I followed David to a "T". To be honest, I was a bit concerned about not scoring the loaf. I had visions of a tight, dense crumb.   I worried for nothing, as you can see.

This bake was similar to the last one with a few additions.  We added some spelt and rye upping the whole grains to 60%.  We upped the water roux another 40% or so because we liked the last bake so much and 40 percent more of fine tasting has to be teeth dropping,.  We added aromatic seeds including coriander, anise, black and brown caraway and fennel.  We also put in some pumpkin and sunflower seeds and some pistachio nuts.