Blog posts

I have to begin with a disclaimer: I do not yet own the original Tartine book. I am slow and deliberate with all of my bread-related purchases, from implements and vessels to texts. I do plan to own it by the end of this month! My other disclaimer is that I have only been baking sourdough since November 1, 2014. I know this because the camera on my phone records dates (man, was I was excited about that first loaf...).

Experimenting this weekend. Had a delicious outcome. The bread is a combination of white whole wheat, rye, spelt, quinoa, amaranth, golden flax seed, chia seed and sunflower seed. It has both natural leaven and commercial yeast as well as olive oil and sorghum syrup. Turned out both lighter and softer than expected.

First I milled 165 g each of rye and spelt berries sifted out the bran and got 295 g flour and 28 g bran. Then hard white spring wheat was ground and sifted.

So here is a little background. I LOVE BREAD. So much so I decided to make that my career. I have been a professional baker for about five years now. I am self taught and have a real knack for bread making. It has taken me to some cool places. In the last two years I have been the bread baker for Chef Michael Smiths Village Feast in Souris PEI. I also worked with a CSA to make bread for 450 families in a local weekly produce pick up. All of this has led me to now. I am currently planning on opening my own baker this year.

Last loaf for 2014 is once again a panettone though it seems that there is a longer delay between when I baked it and when I post it. This year's special bake feature home made citrus peels (50% orange and 50% lemon) as well as beans from a vanilla pod for the added boost of flavour. 

It has been on my mind for a while to put a post together - my last one is from nearly two years ago! I better get this up before the winter semester starts on Monday.
I always get so inspired from all the wonderful things you are putting up on this site and cheer you on from the sidelines. 

These are a few things I have been making in the last months.
My son has been home from university over the Christmas break, and it has been so much fun feeding him. He lost about 6 pounds during the end-of-semester stress and I was more than happy to put those back on his ribs! :)

One of Mr Jeano's buddies expressed a wish for a loaf of sourdough, in the context of hearing another buddy was to be blessed with some rye bread. (The rye bread recipient had never eaten rye until he had some at our place). The buddy who wants sourdough commented his wife had gotten some at the grocery store and he'd really enjoyed it for sandwiches. (I will bet you almost any amount of money their local grocery doesn't carry unbleached flour, let alone bake any quasi-artisan bread).

Failure to plan. That was my situation this morning. I wanted to bake bread but failed to plan for it yesterday so I had no refreshed starter to elaborate, no poolish, no biga, no preferment of any kind. So I decided it was about time that I tried Jason's Quick Coccodrillo Ciabatta. I made the semolina version. 

I followed the formula exactly, using the greater amount of water. I baked with steam for the first 10 minutes and left the oven temperature at 500 F the entire time. The loaves were done in 15 minutes. 

I had a bit of levain left from my experiment with a Forkish loaf and I hate to throw it away.  I kept it on the counter feeding it a bit each day until Thursday when I said "that's it".  I followed gsnyde's San Francisco country loaf (found at this link http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/25402/sf-country-sourdough-%E2%80%93-my-best-ever%E2%80%A6not-sure-why), adjusting the formula to accommodate my 143 g of levain because you can't throw it out darn it.  Anyway

since i made an acetobacter YW and my sourdough died at the same time (double whammy) i have to resort to commercial yeast while waiting for the rebirth of my sourdough.

bought the hario skerton coffee grinder to grind some buckwheat...was easy enough.

This week I've been honored by a visit from Pat Roth (aka proth5.)    I invited her here and happily enough she decided to come and share some of her baking wisdom with me.    One of the things I particularly wanted to master were those pesky brioches à tête.   How do you keep those heads up high?   How do you keep the neck from thickening until they look like body builders with no discernable distinction between body and head?   

These are urgent matters but first