Blog posts

It's Australian Day and it's the day when Aussies celebrate with things we love, barbeque, beer and lamington (?). We didn't plan to do any BBQ gatherings but ended up with one.

I only knew about the BBQ 5-6 hours in advance and decided to bring some fresh butter rolls to the barbie. Given the tight timeframe, straight-dough is the only option. I chose the soft butter rolls recipe from Jeffrey Hamelman's Bread cookbook. The rolls can be done in about 3 hours which worked out nicely with the limited time.

A friend experienced what appeared to be a protease attack earlier this week while making a Blue Cheese, Walnut, and Fig sourdough using the Tartine approach. The loaves began normally - up to forming and then sat with little change. Rather interestingly this was done in parallel with a batch a Tartine aux Cereales using the same sourdough starter and dough recipe. The loaves without blue cheese performed admirably. My friend told described the problem to me and wondered what about the blue cheese might have led to the problem.

Hey Guys! I've been baking my way through The Bread Baker's Apprentice for a high school project. Here's my entry for Challah from a blog about bread which my brother and I share!  http://bakingacrosscountry.wordpress.com/

There are numerous threads on TFL about the benefits of retarding fermentation and/or final proofing by reducing yeast amounts or, more commonly, refrigerating the dough.  However, other than using higher temperatures to manage production scheduling, and a few posts discussing warm fermentation increasing lactic acid production in sourdoughs there doesn't seem to be an equivalent interest in other benefits (if any exist) warmer temperature fermenting and proofing might bring to our baking.

Bread authors have slowly nudged me toward buying some organic and stone ground flours to experiment with. Exploring the web and other sources led me to hone in on War Eagle Mill (WEM) in Rogers Arkansas for my source for they have a good reputation and are closer than most. When they ran a 20% off sale with free shipping for orders over $100 I had to give it a try so I ordered 25 pounds each of organic AP and BF (roller milled), and 10 pounds each of stone ground organic WW and White WW. The flour came Wednesday so I cranked up the oven to make Tartine yesterday. Photo below.

As promised, I am keeping you up to date with my recent baking adventures.  I have a love for baguettes but nothing has given me more grief than this elusive bread.  I have baked these loaves a number of times but have failed to develop the nice open airy crumb that beckons me to bake them as often as I do.  

Seeds everywhere!  Lots of seeds!  Seeds in the dough seeds around the dough.  Seeds, seeds, seeds!  A few nuts too and my favorite flours, Rye and Spelt.   Lots of fibre! 

DOUGH    in order:

Yet more variations on my 36 hours+ sourdough baguette formula. ((original recipe here, 3 earlier variations here, 3 more variations here) I love the taste of wholegrain, also like the nutritional value, but mostly I actually just love the rich sweet fragrant taste.

I'm finally able to drag myself to my computer to edit photos and do a fancy write-up of my latest bakes…  I've been spending too much time at work lately, and have not had time to write about baking, which seems to take more time and effort than just baking alone…