Blog posts

Sourdough Bread made with Liquid Levain fed twice a day

from the SFBI Artisan II Workshop

Probably the key experience provided in the SFBI Artisan II workshop on sourdough baking was baking a series of breads with liquid versus firm starters, starters fed either once or twice a day and breads with different proportions of starter. Each variation produced breads with noticeably different flavor profiles.

There is only one thing better than Gingered,  Tres Apple Almond, Vanilla Granola Crisp with Bourbon Dried Fruit.

And that is Gingered, Tres Apple, Almond, Vanilla Granola Crisp with Bourbon

Dried Fruit and home made Vanilla Ice Cream covered in Chocolate Sauce.

***brushing dust off of a forgotten blog***

:-)

Hi everyone, this will be my first post in a good years' time, I think. I have been keeping up to date with TFL regularly, and I'm very happy to see a lot of new faces around, baking wonderful breads. And of course, I've followed the impressive efforts of old friends, who keep on supporting new, budding bakers and that are always happy to share new recipes and lessons learned from their baking experiments. This community is one of a kind, and I'm very happy to be a part of it.  

Yes, I've been baking regularly still, usually twice a week at least. Just been a bit lazy in posting the result lately.  :p  

 My first trial with Four Grain Blend flour  Richard (Ruralidle) kindly got for me from Little Salkeld Watermill, Cumbria, in Lake District.

This is baked from Hamelman's "BREAD", in levain section. It is naturally leavened, with 10% wholewheat or so. I increased the hydration from 68% to 78%, as i like a softer dough. everything went as scheduled, but i ended up in bed at 1:00 am! a chronic symptom of my late sourdough baking...!

Therefore, i thought of an idea, which is reducing the prefermented flour to 10% to allow 21 hours retarded bulk fermentation, and consequently allows me to continue baking next day without having to sleep late.

Two bits of personal info to share with the community.

* * *

The first is that this summer my family and I are moving to Vancouver, BC.

I took 60 g of rye berries and soaked them for 5 hours in water.  Then, taking a metal sheet tray, I moistened a paper towel and placed it on the tray and spread the berries over the paper towel.  I then took two paper towels, moistened them, placed them over the berries, covered the sheet pan with plastic wrap and covered the whole shebang with a kitchen towel..

The other night I cranked up the charcoal grill and smoked some nice juicy pork chops with some red beans for dinner.  I didn't want to waste what was left of the nice smokey fire so I roasted a bunch of yellow potatoes and what better use for them but in a bread.  I had some left over roasted corn so I figured I might as well make use of that as well.

Since I first got excited about bread, I have been dreaming of ways to use that love for bread for creating something worth sharing with the rest of the world. I have dreamed of opening my own bakery (not going to happen any time soon, but never say never). I have bought a bunch of domain names for starting a bread blog (such as BakerDad.com or 365breads.com to name two). But all the time, I wasn't quite sure what my thing should be. Well, I guess you can never be sure...