Hi! This is a post regarding the site refresh (that I'm cross-posting to the old site as well so I don't have to keep recreating it every time we do a migration)
As you are likely aware, Floyd's been working on a site upgrade for the past several weeks (months!).
I hope everybody had a good holiday. Welcome to 2025. :)
As I've mentioned before, the software that this site runs on is being put out to pasture. No more security updates, the development community has moved on. I've held this site back as long as I've felt like I could, but it has come time to get the site onto the newer platform.
After my first rushed attempt at a naturally leavened panettone without much research, I decided to try again, but with more planning and using what I think is a more respected formula, with all due respect to Gluten Morgen. However, I am still reluctant to try to build a LM. I invigorated a new 50% hydration version of my starter over two days with feedings of 1:0.5:1 at 82°F to ensure that it could triple in 4 hours. To deal with the overnight, I decided to try using a sweet 50% starter by adding sugar to equal 50% of the water (not the flour).
I recently bought some stone milled flour from a local mill and also came back from a trip to Japan where I visited a few sake breweries, which renewed my interest in sakadane (a starter made from koji rice, which is also sometimes called malted rice). So I thought, why not combine the two all at once? That was not the brightest idea I've ever had, but here we are lol.
As mentioned in my intro post, I finally managed to sort it all out and just need to fine tune the things.
To start, this was attempt #1:
Hi TFLers! It's that time of the year again that I have little more time to post. Pasta and phyllo are still my obsessions these days. This is not bread but I still wanna share some of my adventures with you.
I made the Naturally Leavened Brioche-Style Kugelhopf by Maurizio Leo. It cames out great! Wonderful recipe, I highly recommend. I'm the only one in my family that likes dried fruit, so I added very little. I soaked dried apricots in brandy and added some macadamia nuts. I'm really happy with the way it came out and the Nordic Ware Kugelhopf pan was perfect.
I have only posted hearth loaves so far because that's where the bulk of my experimentation goes on, but I do bake soft loaf pan bread for my kids twice a week. Preparing breakfast and lunch sandwiches for the kids five days a week means a lot of bread, and I prefer to know what goes into this significant part of their diet!
The usual formula for the kid's bread is simple. For a 1.1kg loaf, I combine 25% whole grain with 75% bread flour, milk, 1.5g yeast, 10g salt, 2 tablespoons of butter, and 1 tablespoon of sugar, around 77% hydration.
Today's bake: Danish Rye Bread Ragbrod (Denmark)
Source: The Rye Baker by Stanley Ginsberg
Notes: Scaled to 2 loaves @ 1.575kg ea. from 1 loaf at 1.800kg.
Substitutions: None
Probably the best of my Panettone bakes so far this season! Lucky number 5!
I have been using the Milanese bound method exclusively to manage the LM this Christmas, in attempt to really get to grips with it and try to develop a deep understanding of what it does and how to use this technique wisely. Except for one occasion weeks ago where I made the over night in water, Piemontese style, as I felt the leavening seemed a little sluggish and as expected it massively ramped up yeast leavening power! Otherwise bound method all the way.
First up, Hamelman's Quarkbrot. The formula calls for 60% bread flour, 20% medium rye flour, and 20% rye chops. It also includes quark cheese. Since the medium rye flour and rye chops and quark cheese are scarce as hen's teeth in my corner of northern Michigan, I was forced to adapt. My trusty Komo grain mill does just fine at producing whole rye flour and cracked rye, so I used those. The cracked rye was treated to a hot soak, rather than the cold soak for the rye chops; this per Hamelman's suggestion in a different recipe. And Hamelman suggests that yog
