Blog posts

Cell phones rock for casual photography!

I had a full load of 8 cast iron pots in the oven this morning. I had four of my Heart Bread loaves to bake for a customer, and I've been waiting for an opportunity to bake some of Ian's cream cheese breads, and I also added a couple of Tartine Porridge loaves to top up the load - this one made with Kamut flake porridge, walnuts and walnut oil (bought some the other day).

   I needed some rolls to eat with all the food we've been cooking with our Instant Pot and figured I would make a version of one of my favorites.  Cream cheese always makes for a nice soft crumb and the addition of the maple syrup in the porridge added a little extra sweetness to go along with the honey.

    I made a rye bread with shredded carrots while being a test baker for Stanley Ginsberg's Rye Baker book and that came out better than I expected.  I'm not a big carrot cake fan, but I do love roasted caramelized carrots, which are sweet like candy.  I used some special multi-colored purple, yellow, and orange carrots and roasted them in some olive oil until they were nice and soft and sweet.  I mashed them up before adding them in the dough and I was not disa

the loaf

detail upper rim

 crackling crust

 crumb

Hi,

I have been baking the Champlain like mad and had so much starter that I thought I try a different loaf with different bread. This recipe is from Vanessa Kimbell in UK:

http://www.sourdough.co.uk/a-basic-sourdough-recipe/

I followed a recipe in her 'Food for thought' book which is essentially like the one in the link...

I felt it was time to revisit some of the recipes that I have made in the past and Ru’s Polenta Sourdough was one that I really liked and wanted to play around with a bit. So this is my second version of her recipe.

Recipe:

330 g of Selkirk wheat berries (this is a 1950s hard red spring wheat variety)

110 g of cornmeal

300 g of boiling water 

770 g of unbleached flour

50 g ground flax

100 g raw sunflower seeds, toasted in a dry frying pan

100 g raw pumpkin seeds, toasted in a dry frying pan

Marquis Wheat Sourdough

Fresh milled high extraction organic Marquis wheat; young levain; 85% hydration; cold proofed overnight

Bacon Cheddar Caramelized Onion Sourdough

After recent bakes I have been a bit disheartened. Earlier this week I got the Red Star Yeast newsletter and they featured “Unbelievable Sweet Orange rolls” - a variation on cinamon rolls.  I followed the recipe exactly (I made a slightly bigger dough and had to bake some rolls seperately) and whilst mine wasn’t as pretty as theirs, it went down a treat with friends tonight. it feels good to have a sucess and the taste was really nice - a combination of orange and cinamon.  yum!

Happy baker tonight

Leslie

Recently we went on a ski holiday, which was great fun, but I managed to slip over on an icy pavement when walking back to the chalet in ski boots. (No falls on the piste!) Landed on my right side, and my elbow hasn’t quite settled down yet. It didn’t interfere with skiing, but now that I’m home it is a good excuse reason to get out of the hoovering!