Blog posts

Baguettes.. baking steel and a hotel pan.

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I've been having real trouble with my baguettes but finally found something that works. 

As a semi Frenchmen, I've found I need to take matters into my own hands when it comes to baguettes. 

sourdough recipe. 

60% hydration 95F

100% bread flour (Bobs Red Mill)

2% starter - I will vary this depending on the ambient temp to control for time. 

1% salt

autolyze 1hr

salt in and slap + fold until incorporated and smooth maybe 5 min

Ferment on the counter at 55-60 18-24hrs  

Sourdough bread with cooked mixed rice

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I had cooked white rice and mixed (black and brown) rice in hand so I decided to add in using an adapted brown rice porridge bread recipe from the book, Chad Robertson's Tartine Book No. 3.

The ingredients are:

Spelt flour 50%

Whole wheat flour 50%

Water 85%

Leaven 15%

Sea salt 2.5%

Cooked mixed rice 70%

30 min autolyse, 4 hour bulk fermentation (4 sets of stretch and fold), cold-proof in the fridge for about 18 hours.

The fifth loaf

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The first in a series of experiments on my 'Loaf 3' recipe.

Loaf 5 
250g white flour, 250g wholegrain wheat flour.
80% hydration
15% starter
2% salt

Experiment: Refreshed starter overnight. 

In the morning, did 1 hour autolyse, then mixed in starter & salt.

4 stretch & folds over 2 hours, then a bulk ferment at (cool-ish) room temp for about 5-6 hours.

Pre-shaped and let rest for 30 mins

Can you bring the bread?

Profile picture for user yozzause

Can you bring some bread for our old friends gathering?  Sure can, so this is what i put together  i chose to do 20% wholemeal breads,  some sticks using fresh compressed yeast with butter and an egg in the mix .

Weekly Bake 02/11/20

Profile picture for user Crusty Loafer

Much improved this week.  After last week I did some TLC to my starter.  I had been using it and then feeding it and sticking right back into the fridge until the next bake. I wasn't giving it any feeding before I baked.

Beer Barm

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I finally got around to having a go using a Beer Barm, the flour was 20% wholemeal flour with 80% Black and Gold  supermarket  flour.

Scared

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Greetings Everyone,

     I am a 74-year-old man, and I recently began to experiment with sourdough starter.  Actually, I never baked bread at all until last week:  I baked some bread just to use up the free flour that I received from commodity (for the first time).

Chewy crumb in sourdough

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Quite a while back, I was seeking information how to get a chewier, more elastic crumb in my sourdough loaves.

I was advised regarding protein content of flour and going for a higher hydration, and I would like to say a big THANKS to the several bakers who advised higher hydration, because it really did the trick.

Improv Pain de compagnon

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I learned to cook by going out to the garden and picking vegetables, and then going down to the hen house and seeing who had stopped laying, was ready to be dinner.  That taught me an improvisational style of cooking - cooking as a form of jazz - the garden produces similar products over a period of weeks, and one cooks variations on a theme, because every day the basket from the garden varies, but there are themes that carry over from day to day and from week to week.  That calls for improv bread. Certainly there is always pita, but . . . .