Blog posts

I was away from home and baking for a long time, but now I'm back (at least in the way that I count as being "at home.")

I had the chance to be with one of my oldest friends and some of his friends the other night and it hit me like a ton of bricks that my time in Okinawa had changed me in some pretty profound ways and that I will never be quite the same person ever again.  I think it all came out on the plus side, but the changes are real.

 So why keep baking the same old bread?  So I decided to goose up some of my formulas.

Now and then I need toasted bread. The supermarket varieties are, of course, off limits. A loaf that yields without putting up any resistance to my probing finger is not worthy of a Schwarzwald ham or Fontina topping. I want my toast delicately softening when I spread it with butter - not disintegrating into mash!

Late Wednesday night after a long day at work, I found myself in the kitchen grinning devilishly at the thought of what's to come. Focaccia!

Previous Blog:  http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/20032/1-little-2-little-3-little-chia-rye-loaves

Have your ever felt that the expression "Couldn't see the forest for the trees." applied to you?
I think that this may be a case where it really applied to me <Blush>

The wood-fired oven project must go on hold till Spring comes.  It is located in a very wet area of the back yard and I don't have enough dry days left free to do anything about it, or to protect it if I press on.  So, it is under cover for the winter, and I'll pick up with building of the new dome once the rains have passed.  That could be January, or it could be May.  I'll just have to wait and see.

Here is the WFO then, bedded down for the wet.

This is another bake from "Whole grain breads" of P.Reinhart. It is Whole Wheat Hearth bread.

It is 100% WholeWheat.  70% of WW flour was from a sack of Indian Chakki atta (stone ground flour). I suppose Chakki atta is 96% extraction. Remaining flour was milled from red winter italian wheat, sifted. Therefore, i suppose that this is not entirely 100% ww, but close.

I have posted my cast iron bakes quite a few times over the past years . Seeing the new-found interest in Tartine and the cast iron bake I thought I would post my bake today to illustrate how well the "usual" sourdough responds.

This basically Joe Ortiz' idea. The underlying loaf is a challah (a not terribly sweet, not terribly rich challah, just a nice one). I made up his recipe last night, which produces 2.5 pounds of dough (6 cups of flour, to give you an idea of how much dough). I think you could use any challah or brioche, but I do like the 'not too sweet, not too rich' part. If you go too sweet or too rich, I think you just get a giant cinnamon roll (not that this is a bad thing..)

First rule of baking - KNOW YOUR OWN OVEN.

I think I did until a couple of weeks ago when I finally found out that I have been baking my breads in a not-so-correct oven mode for the past 6 months.

Instead of pre-heating my oven with fan+top & bottom heat, I pre-heated my oven and baked in a fan-assisted (with some heating elements) mode. The result after using the correct baking mode is significantly improved.

The loaves are more open with nicer ears and crumbs. Finally, I have a decent looking loaves.

One of the breads I bake regularly for sale is the Swedish Limpa Rye from Peter Reinhart's "Whole Grain Breads". The word "Limpa" sounds intriguing - but it simply means "round" in Swedish - I asked my Finnish friend Melita. Therefore, of course, my Swedish rye breads are always round.

I made some changes to the original recipe, though. I use less water for the starter - I found 142 g water results in a really wet dough: 127 g is sufficient. I also cut back on the molasses, adding only 37 g. The recipe amount with 57 g is, like many of the WGB recipes, too sweet for my taste.