Blog posts

So last week the cool guy who trades me goat cheese requested the sesame levain I made on week three.  I was hesitant as I didn't intend to go back and replicate or improve any recipes but I reconsidered quickly and thought it would be nice to fulfill a request.  I had to make a few changes though.  I cut the lemon idea entirely as I dont' want to find out how much zest I'd need to actually taste it and the loaf was so good when I couldn't taste it.  Secondly I doubled the levain and reduced the final dough ingredients to keep the formula the same.

Maybe this should be called Hamelman's Pain au Levain, mostly, because there were a couple of small excursions from the formula presented in Hamelman's Bread, 2nd Edition. 

baked this yesterday... yes, it is for my friends. this time they dropped by my place when i was baking. they were delivering an early birthday cake for me!! 

and i treated them a freshly baked bread from the oven!

home baked blueberry cheesecake :) what a surprised!

I used a small amount of organic rye flour, perhaps 10% in my white bread flour starter and that seemed to kick things up a bit.I have reduced the proofing time to 40 minutes on the batard and while a little easier to score, my lame work still needs work.  Next bake I will try a 35 minute proof for the batard/ baguette.

All three loaves are 20% Rye Sourdough.

one with Caraway Seeds, one with Fennel Seeds…..

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and one with Rolled Oats on top…..

Not long ago Varda did a series of posts on her quest to recreate a non SD Pratzel’s Tzitzel.  She had the good fortune of talking to the original owners about the formula for this bread and gained some good insight.  I though I would do a SD one just to be different and I prefer SD any day, any way to yeasted breads

I've used Reinhart's Portuguese Sweet Bread recipe to make Hawaiian Rolls for a friend on a couple of occasions.  I modify the recipe in his Bread Baker's Apprentice book to use a poolish at 100% hydration and to include more flour as I find this recipe very sticky for some reason.  The original recipe's overall hydration is not that high, but maybe I screwed up the measurements somewhat.  Next time I may try Floyd's Hawaiian Rolls recipe which is similar but includes pineapple juice.

I had enough orders this week so I have some crumb shots and some not as most was going toward orders. I made my usual 100 % sourdough bagels from Wild Yeast blog but I used whey from my kefir for all of the liquid including feeding the staters..I use 1/2 rye starter and 1/2 white staters for the formula. They were all spoken for but the fragrance and shape are lovely so I have high hopes for the reviews on texture and flavor . I also had more orders for the Oatmeal Bread.

Yesterday, I baked the “Field Blend #2” bread from Ken Forkish's Flour Water Salt Yeast. It is a mixed grain and mixed leavening formula with 30% whole grains (wheat and rye). It is similar in method but quite different in flavor from the “Overnight Country Blonde,” which was the first bread I made from this book.

I got the book "How to Bake" by Paul Hollywood for my birthday recently, have been baking some bread from it; I like the sort of breads that are in it, though I don't like the "vagueness" in the recipes. Especially in the sourdough ones. For instance, the amount of hydration of the starter is not even mentioned. With my 100% hydration starter, the recipe below has a total hydration of 71,4%. Which I do not find that very high, considering the original recipe uses part whole wheat flour. And that is with the maximum amount of suggested water