Blog posts

I make this bread this weekend and I would like to thank all who have made this reciently and have posted to this site.  It certainly helps to see and read how others have made a certain bread.  I wish that I had checked here just before I started and David Snyder posted some picture showing the shaped loaves with the Dutch crunch on. 

Sourdough Crackers

Previous blog: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/22542/noknead-multigrain-seed-and-nut-loaf

I routinely make baguettes with a straight dough at 70% hydration, and an overnight ferment at 55°F.  Curious, in yesterday's mix I reduced the hydration to 65%, all other ingredients (KA AP flour and sea salt) and processes were the same: DDT set to 55°F with ice water, and the dough chilled during autolyse, between S&Fs and overnight retarding for 15 hours. I was motivated to try a lower hydration based on a smattering of comments scattered in various TFL threads that argue open crumb isn't only about hydration.

I promised my self to give Karin's Spelt Walnut Bread a Try, recipe here, and i finally did yesterday, and i was very satisfied.

A drizzly weekend seemed like a good time to fill the house with the aroma of spices.   It started out with the need to replenish our supply of Cinnamon-Raisin-Walnut Bread, my Number One Bread Fan’s favorite.  Then, I wanted to bake something really special to take to our friends’ new house for a pre-dinner snack and cocktail.   I settled on making a second attempt at the Cheese-Curry-Onion Bread from The Cheese Board Collective’s cookbook.

Cinnamon

Dark Buckwheat Rye

During my pregnancy with my son Per, I was very health conscious, studying all kinds of parenting books and magazines on how to provide my firstborn with an optimum of nutrition. As a result I ate buckwheat "porridge" for breakfast every day, for buckwheat is not only high in minerals, like iron and potassium, and full of antioxidants, it's also a good source of protein, and, not only that, it has more Vitamin B than wheat!

No-Knead Multigrain Seed and Nut Loaf

A previous blog:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/20460/banana-saga-%E9%95%B7%E7%AF%87%E6%95%85%E4%BA%8B

Last December a posting by Jaydot caught my interest http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/21186/huge-amount-seeds-and-sugar
Her sister in law had brought a recipe back from South Africa, which seem a bit strange.

This is a super soft, highly enriched, labour intensive, Asian-Style Pain de Mie.

So, it's time for my bi-annual decorated birthday-cake post! Our son turned 9 last weekend and as is our tradition, I made his birthday cake in the theme he selected.

This weekend, I returned to my roots, tweaked a new favorite and baked a new bread.

When I started baking bread again after a 25 year hiatus, my motive was to make two favorite breads I was unable to obtain locally – Jewish Sour Rye and San Francisco-style Sourdough. My initial achievement of these goals was with the Sour Rye formula from George Greenstein's Secrets of a Jewish Baker and with Peter Reinhart's Sourdough Bread from Crust & Crumb. These remain among my favorite breads.