Blog posts

Wholemeal Options; Wood-fired Baking on 30th January 2012

After the success of Friday’s Farmers’ Market I had no bread in the house; none at all!   I spent a bit of time at the weekend building up my wheat levain and rye sourdough, and looked at my flour stock and decided to make a few loaves with my lovely Marriage’s Organic Strong Wholemeal at the centre of attention.

Back in November http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/25804/whole-wheat-sunday I specified what I want in a sourdough loaf's crumb...

2. Al dente crumb; i.e., when you mash it, it springs back; when you bite it, there is resistance.

This "Swiss" traditions are very diffcult to forget, even after 14 years in the U.S.

And I guess why should we!

Happy Baking

Thomas

The second bread on my "Equal Opportunity Baking" list (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/26944/fair-baking-my-equal-opportunity-pledge) got its place near the top because of my curiosity.

In the past I had read several comments on the many errata in Leader's books, and, therefore, decided not to buy it. But Christmas came, and, being blessed with three daughters (2 step and 1 own), I found several baking books under the tree, among them "Local Breads".

Hello fellow bakers! 

Ive been a fan on The Fresh Loaf for quite some time, and finally have decided to start posting some stuff!

I have been working in restaurants the last 2 1/2 years, the last year in pastry/bakeries. I currently work at a small startup bakery in San Francisco.  we are working on croissants at the moment, ive been practicing given that they are one of my favorite things to eat! I am relatively new to yeasted doughs, so here are some of the test runs so far!  

Hello fellow bakers! 

Ive been a fan on The Fresh Loaf for quite some time, and finally have decided to start posting some stuff!

I have been working in restaurants the last 2 1/2 years, the last year in pastry/bakeries. I currently work at a small startup bakery in San Francisco. Currently one of the things we are working on is croissants. 

Ive started with the Pierre Herme base recipe and have been playing around with it.

I just came across some videos explaining bakers math and making baguettes.

http://www.stellaculinary.com/podcasts/video/how-to-make-a-basic-baguette-video-recipe

It's been a while since I mixed up my standard white bread flour formula. I decided to march to a different tune a few days ago and try something a bit different.

I started collecting things from the pantry and this is what I arrived at:

The formula:

Warning: I have not baked this bread!  Now that that's out of the way...

I have a 1948 edition of the Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedic Cookbook, edited by Ruth Berolzheimer.  It had belonged to my mother; a wedding gift, I believe.  

I was in a creative mood the other day and after my wife fried up some bacon I felt inspired to use the leftovers in a bread.  You know what they say....."bacon makes everything taste better".  It's hard to argue with this logic, so I decided to combine the bacon with some cheddar cheese, toasted onions and added some wheat germ I just bought from King Arthur Flour to add some nuttiness to the overall flavor profile.  I boiled some potatoes an