Blog posts

Hey it's Wendy here with a new starter project. :) 

While waiting on my other cultures to grow, I read about harvesting yeast from water used to ferment raisins. SCIENCE!! I'm a sucker for experiments. It's part of the reason I like bread baking to begin with. So this, I had to try. I put it together about an hour ago. (see photo) Doesn't look too appetizing does it? Lol

David Snyder's marvelous and "whimsical" boule 75% AP / 25% Semolina Durum creation.  But somehow transformed to baguettes and batard here!  How can be?  An incredible snap to the crust and a semolina nuttiness inside.  Good stuff.  

Just because...

Crumb shot added.

This past week, I tried txfarmer's Poolish Croissants again with great success. This time I used Kerrygold butter and all King Arthur bread flour. I had to let the dough relax a couple times to be able to roll it out, but was able to get really nicely defined layers.

Nothing like the extra tang you get from using buttermilk along with a sourdough starter.  I wanted a nice wholesome moist bread so a porridge bread using KAF Six Grain Flakes which contains barley flakes, rolled oats, rye chops, malted wheat flakes, rye flakes, millet, and quinoa flakes was added to some roasted sunflower seeds along with the buttermilk to make the porridge.

A nice mix of flours including AP, whole freshly ground rye, potato flour and freshly ground whole wheat were used.

It was strongly suggested that I start making pan loaf style bread to keep constantly in the bread box and that the loaves made a couple weeks ago with the sprouted flour and eggs would be desirable. At least the bread has some complexity to it and is 50% whole grain. I decided to bake a base line loaf because there was a couple of changes that were to be made, pumping up the starter percentage and altering the baking method slightly.

Last week I was considering baking a bread with corn porridge to use up some polenta lurking around in the back of the cupboard. As a northern European, cooking with corn is unfamiliar to me and associated with Italian and/or American cuisine. As a child in the 80's, I thought maize = corn = tinned sweetcorn. Tinned sweetcorn was either an unwelcome addition to tuna mayonnaise or one of the 10,000 things crammed into salads along with boiled eggs and cubes of cheese.

This is a simple but flavorful bread I baked a week ago.  I used freshly milled Durum and whole wheat along with some KAF bread flour and potato flour.

I used some pistachio oil hoping to add to the nutty flavor but you couldn't really taste it so olive oil will do just fine next time.

The final bread came out very tasty with a moderate crumb and a nice nutty flavor you always get from using durum flour.

I used Tartine's Ode to Bourdon quantities and types of flour but followed dabrownman's suggestions for getting a lighter crumb and better oven rise. Well, the oven rise definitely worked, however, the crumb was very similar to the one I got using Robertson's extended autolyse. This one was a tad lighter but not by much. This might have been my fault as I think I cut the bulk ferment by one hour and the retarded proof by 3 due to work commitments. Anyhow, here is what I did:

We have been making 50% whole grain, half sprouted bread the past couple of weeks and Lucy was about to have a conniption fit since we are out of the rye bread we like so much.  The whole grains were 70% rye and the rest wheat with half of them being sprouted.

After returning from my trip out west and meeting with David Snyder on his home turf I couldn't wait to hit the oven running, so to speak.  But what to do?  I was torn between a bake of David's SJSD's and Hamelman's Pain au Levain w/WW.  There are no losers here.  But in the end the Pain au Levain won out.  I've yet to get a bad bake from these.  Easiest dough on earth!