Blog posts

Hello, These loaves are to bring to a New Year's potluck (no crumb shot...although the bread smells so good I'd dearly love to cut into one so I can taste it!).

Inspired by louie brown's Olive Leaf scoring to evoke the olives in his bread, I tried to score little garlic bulbs on the tops of my loaves.
They turned out looking more like strange, animal paw prints...!   :^)

Inspired by LisaL's question  Baguettes by noon? I baked a sourdough version of my overnight baguette formula for the first time.

Last week I mixed, and baked my first pandoro, the Italian cake, rich with sugar, butter, and eggs, as well as cocoa butter, and a bit of vanilla extract (from Maggie Gleezer's Artisan Baking).

(scroll down for update and pictures!!!)

My mother passed away long before her time, now almost 15 years ago.

She left behind a bread recipe that still goes around by her name; "Renny-bread" Even distant cousins seem to know the recipe; last summer I visited one of them here in Amsterdam, after she had been really helping me out for my wedding (she has THE most wonderful flowershop here in Amsterdam). To thank her I brought her a "Renny-bread", thinking she would see and eat it for the first time in her life...

What did I do during the holidays? Baking, of course! (We were invited for Christmas dinner, so no family cooking). I love my newest addition to my evergrowing collection of baking books, Jan Hedh's "Swedish Breads & Pastry". Though I do not follow his technique in every step (I prefer steaming with a steam pan and a cup of boiling water), and, also found the baking times for some recipes way longer than the bread needed in my oven, I think it's a great book.

I'm still at it.  We were at my parents' place on Saturday (Christmas day), and while I did end up baking a batch of Italian bread for Christmas dinner, there were no baguettes.  But we got home Saturday night, and I actually felt in the mood for baguettes.  I made up the poolish, increasing the yeast slightly from last week so it would ripen before late afternoon, and sunday I made yet another batch of the Hamelman Baguettes with Poolish.

Glezer versus Reinhart

After getting Reinhart's "Bread Baker's Apprentice" for X-mas this year (thank you sis!) I baked my first bread "from the heart" and I loved it!!! So far I've been a "follower" of the Maggie Glezer-way of going about business:

I've been meticulously studying formulas and weighing ingredients to the milligram, producing very nice loafs as a result. But after baking with my head so much, it is time to start baking with my heart!

Ecco il mio primo tentativo con una nuova formula per un micone di grano integrale. Su suggerimento del mugnaio Marino ho miscelato la Macina Integrale con la Buratto. La formula complessiva impiega 50% Macina + 38% Buratto + 12% Manitoba, quest'ultima usata per la costruzione del lievito naturale liquido. Le caratteristiche di assorbimento della farina integrale hanno portato ad un'idratazione finale del 78% circa, consistenza impasto medio/morbito+.

Morning everyone, indeed i need a digital scale and in the mall (almost) in front of us I found 3 or 4 models of camry scales for sale...furthermore i haven't found any Christmas gift under the tree...if someone owns it, please get in touch.as i'm planning another batch of panettone..as always happy baking. Paolo

Almost all the breads I bake are hearth loaves, but I've been tempted for some time to make one of the German-style ryes that Hamelman says should be baked in a pullman pan (AKA pain de mie pan).

Pullman or pain de mie pan

I purchased a pullman pan from KAF's Baker's Catalogue. It is from the new line of bakeware they are carrying, and it is a beautiful piece of metal. But this is not a review of baking pans, so back to bread …