Blog posts

I was six when the Larraburu Brothers Bakery shut down. I don't recall what the bread tasted like, and I'm not even sure I ever had any. But I'm fascinated by the history and how widespread and adored this bread was. The number of loaves, the loaves shipping around the world, even to France, indicates that it wasn't just a small group of aficionados that were keen on this bread.

I grew up on Colombo rolls and sliced bread, Oroweat rye, and 'artificial' sourdough baguettes from Safeway.  And I always had a Boudin bread bowl with clam chowder whenever I visited San Francisco.

Last time I made the Scott MeGee Ciabatta, but with a biga.  Today, I converted it to a 125% hydration AP levain.  Whereas the biga had 40% of the flour pre-fermented, I dropped this down to 20%, and also dropped the IDY by at least 2/3.  The overall hydration stays at 76%.

I kept the large bread at 750g but decided to not stretch it so far this time so it has more girth, which I like.  The taste is sweet and delicate and this ciabatta makes great morning toast.

A Sourdough Crossroads 

Don't think for minute because of the title that I am going to give up this wonderful hobby (using the word hobby seems a bit limited to me but it is what it is- another expression I have never liked). If I gave up baking sourdough I would have to go back to brewing beer, and there is nothing more messy and demanding that that. I once ruined a perfectly good carpet with an exploding mead recipe. 

Sprouted spelt was used in this bake because… well, that was all I had on hand at the moment. See! It’s wise to sprout some grains ahead of time in case you don’t have time to do so someday :) 

Sprouted Spelt & Red Fife Wheat SD

Dough flour (all freshly milled):

120g      40%       Whole red fife wheat flour

Greeting fellow bakers and happy Canada Day to our Canadian friends and happy Presidents Day to my American friends!

Sorry for the repetition, but this P. Reinhart recipe has become my favourite sandwich loaf. I use a whole light rye starter and it is delicious sandwich bread!

I have baked this recipe in a loaf pan, free standing in the oven with the pizza stone but this time decided to try baking in a hot cast iron Dutch oven, 20 minutes covered and 20 minutes uncovered.

Having pretty much healed from a lost argument with my mandolin slicer, I decided it was time to make another attempt at the 5-grain loaf and put into practice the kind advice given by the great folks here. 

• I tried the 1-2-3 loaf starting with 100g of starter.
• I mixed it up but the dough would not come to together. 
• After about 4 hours I did 2 sets of 50 slap and folds. That seems to have improved it. 
• Did a preshaping and a shaping.

Last month I participated in the Community Bake for Hamelmans 5 grain sourdough bread. I made it 3 times because I was intrigued and pleased with the results. 

I found it was not a dough that it did not knead machine mixing. It benefited from putting some pepita seeds in the soaker, and an autolyse for the flours before adding the starter .

I really benefitted from all the information that others provided. I did not have a charming canine assistant but I did have paper towels. I used these to prevent icky sticky taps.

I'm a 100% wholegrain loaf nut. I don't really want to make anything else. And I regularly make goat's kefir at home, so when Abe told me about a loaf he'd made using whole Spelt and kefir, I was keen to have a go.

This is the 4th attempt and the best so far.

and orange zest with semi-sweet chocolate chips. I took bits and pieces from TFL posters Shaio Ping and Beatrice as well as Jay on Perfect Sourdough a Facebook bread blogging site. I used his formula with a major twist. I made the levain with AP and cocoa and YW . I added another 100g of YW to the dough . This was a very large batch of dough. A two hour autolyse with everything except add ins. One s&f and an hour later one lamination for add ins. That’s it. No shaping just folded the edges under this the gorgeous free form bursts. The crumb is open and tender and so rich.