Blog posts

Hi friends..

Well - I purchased the starter from breadtopia.com.  I was very faithful feeding it daily for about 2 weeks.  Then it went to once a week..Then - hurricane Irene hit CT..I lost power for 4 days.  I now have power and the refridgerator is humming along ...Here are my questions:

1.  Is the starter still alive?

2.  What if there is about 1/4 inch of water on top?

3.  How often should I be feeding it?

Anything else I need to be aware of?

We're packing for our holiday in Wales, and the prospect of having 10 days of Chorleywood bread from the local shop let my wife say:

Juergen, You'll bake the bread, won't you!

So,

This will be my first holiday to take electronic scales, thermometer, dough knife, scoring knife, silicon baking sheets ...

Did I forget anything?

Saturday, August 20, was a busy day in the kitchen.  And a bit more daunting than normal.  Friends had invited us to dinner that evening and asked if I would bring some bread.  When I asked what they would like, the answer was “something that would go well with snoek paté.”  Did I mention that Marthinius had previously been executive chef and partner in an up-scale restaurant?  And did I also mention that I’ve never had my baking critiqued by a chef whose training is in classic French cuisine?  Hence the daunting.

Although there would be no way for you to know it, I have been baking.  It’s the blogging bit that has suffered in recent weeks.  This will be the first step in addressing the shortfall.

Sending this to Yeastspotting.

Click here for my blog index.

Another great loaf from the book "A Handmade Loaf". 73% whole wheat, 27% rye (all in starter), and lots of oatmeal on the crust, it's a flavorful whole grain loaf.

Lately, I've resumed my loosely disciplined approach to developing a formula for a pan wheat bread with around 33% whole wheat.  It bears some semblance to my psomi formula and may be similar to what I understand the English call a brown bread. I've used AP flour so the dough is just a little sticky and slack at the end of bulk fermentation.

In the first example, I used dry malt extract that I bought from a local homebrew shop.

This is an illustration of Shaping a batard i thought i would share with TFL memebers.

I Hope this helps new TFL members with shaping skills.

One of the best wedding gifts my hubbilicious and I received was Beth Hensperger's The Bread Bible. After reading the introduction and first chapter, I decided to follow in Hensperger's footsteps and do what she did, twice: teach myself more about the craft and art of bread baking by baking every recipe in a bread book, in order. And so it began, on August 14th......

I have a houseguest visiting from New Mexico.  His theory is that "healthy" bread is bread with lots of seeds in it.  We went over to the "Grateful Bread" store in Sacramento and he picked up a loaf of something they call "Woodstock" bread, a whole wheat loaf with lots of seeds in it.  My friend thinks it's named after the little yellow bird in the Peanuts comic strip who would no doubt consider birdseed a gourmet addition to bread. 

It was pretty good, so I had a hand at trying to duplicate it.

Besides the Whole Wheat Breads, I also baked a SFBI Miche and Hamelman's "Pain au Levain with Mixed Sourdough Starters" this weekend.