Blog posts

  First off I'd like to wish everyone at TFL a very Happy (belated) New Year and the best of health and successful baking for 2014 to all. So many fine looking breads, along with a wealth of informative discussion being posted it's hard to keep up with it all but I can see the year is already off to a great start. Although I have been doing quite a bit of home baking since the new year began, finding the time to actually write about it has, as always, been a challenge. This post is an effort at trying to rectify that situation. 

Haven't had much time to post over the past week due to, well, life; but I have had time to bake! Twice!

10% Whole Wheat Organic Sourdough with Roasted Garlic and Sun Dried Tomatoes, 78% Hydro.

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This has been my third attempt at baking this ciabatta. but I kinda made mistake every single time. Its really freaky when it comes to a wet dough like this. I have 2 issues that keep coming for the last three bakes, they are:

1) After overnight Bulk Fermentation, the dough sticks to the side of an oiled lock n lock plastic container. When I invert it out, it RIPPED in half. I suppose most of the big bubble disappear with this accident. Any suggestions on over coming this problem?

Hi everybody. So I decided to make a chocolate bread pudding this weekend using some stale chocolate SD/YW bread i had laying around. The pudding was dense, rich, and over the top delicious. While I'm still working on the chocolate SD/YW bread recipe itself, the pudding batter recipe is pretty straightforward and adapted from an old Alton Brown recipe:

2 eggs

3 egg yolks

3/4 cup sugar

Don't pay the ransom friends, I have escaped. Well between skiing and the winter Olympics it is hard to find time to bake and I have had no time to browse TLF for a coupe of weeks.

This was done from the book, but on this version I added sauteed onion to the last few stretch & folds.

So my first attempt at 80% hydration baguettes went so so, produced lovely tasting baguettes but the crumb was tight with tiny holes (see below)

Went to visit friends this weekend and decided to being my Tartine Basic Country Loaf to share. I learned her parents use to be wholesale bakers with 30 retail customers, so I finally had a worthy critic to test my bread. 

The loaf had been frozen for a week or so, thawed on Friday and reheated on sunday. I heated it at 350 for 10-13 minutes and then cut it up. She said it rivaled the finest bakeries. 

It it was a great complement. She also said I can open a store. That is when my wife stopped translating!

I recently got a bag of t85 flour and I had some whole rye from the same mill as as well. While not as open as I guess I would of loved, this bread is great. its dark and earthy and to be honest a nice change from most of what I have baked lately.

700g t85    85%

50g whole rye   6%

150g 100% levain   (75g flour 9%) (75g water 9%)

667g water   81%

16g salt   2%

After last weeks Rye Soda bread the starter is ready! It didn't take long and was so easy, just a couple of days of refreshments (RYe flour mixed with tap water to a paste) and it was doubling in size within hours. I don't know if the conditions in South England are ideal or whether using fresh organic Rye flour is a sure fire technique but it amazes me how easy it seems to be to get a working starter.