Blog posts

Work in Progress

First step: make the brew piece. Russian red rye malt and process detailed here

Here's the result after 5.5hrs in the water bath at 65.5C. The water bath is a cheap sous-vide circulator in a saucepan of hot water.

To be continued....

Ah. Nothing beats a hearty onion soup and a sourdough slab in these freezing days!

sourdough is 25%rye, 10% whole spelt and rest is T65.

Catching up after a few days offline, last one for today, lol.

I made this one a few days ago, using Abe's VSSD process and following the same recipe/process as last time. Our kitchen was a few degrees warmer, and the dough rose overnight on the counter to 3x size - much better than the last attempt. 

Abe posted this a few days ago, and I decided to give it a try. This had to be the easiest and best 100% whole wheat I have ever made!! For anyone who enjoys home milling, watch the video and give it a try. This is the first time I haven't had to do something else (add some AP or bread flour, follow Reinhart's "epoxy" biga/soaker method, or something else) to get a decent rise and crumb. Really happy with the simplicity of this!!

My dough info:

As a general rule, my husband and I tend to make do with what we have. It's an approach we adopted after a few too many spontaneous purchases that were never really needed in the first place. But once in a while it's really worth getting what you want or "need". 

Like many bakers here I've been strongly influenced by Full Proof baking. The basic open crumb recipe has worked very well for me in the past, and the detail described in Kristen's method has allowed me to get a feel for where to push the envelope with the breads that I make, although, of course this method is not for a lazy baker!

Well I’m not sure how to start, as this is my first post, so I’ll give a little bit of a backstory...

I work as a chef in the middle of the country close to my home. I don’t don’t do top end fine dining rubbish;  I do good quality local homemade produce which I put a lot of care into. With the soul problem being, that I simply don’t have enough time to create and do new things as much as I want if I don’t have a bit of knowledge on what it is to begin with. Anyone else who works in a kitchen will likely understand where I’m coming from.

A week or so ago, my sister said “Let's make bismarks.”  So today we made bismarks, aka paczki.  Two batches, as a matter of fact.  It was one of our favorite things that Mom made.  Today, there are a number of happy McCool kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids reliving memories of Mom/Grandma/Great-Grandma Joyce and her bismarks.  

We never just make food.  We make a tangible expression of our love with everything that we prepare. And memories; strong, lasting memories. 

Paul