Blog posts

It is finally getting a bit warmer here, but nights and mornings are still bitterly cold. We have winds from north, and they chill you to the bone if you're not well packed in. The weather has been beautiful the last couple of days, with clear blue skies and some warmth coming from the sun. Still, things don't thaw up before lunch time, and summer is clearly still a few months away.

ayo tfl-ers

dig my bread this week.  twas a good week:

is this photo too big?  i changed the dimensions to (800X535) what size do you guys make your pictures for this type of stuff?

and i know all you bread-nerds dig the crumb shots so here you go:

and even closer up:

Had to make a couple of changes to Sweetbird’s hugely fantastic, far better than magnificent, Buckwheat Bread recipe that can be found here:

 http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/27784/buckwheatpear-sourdough-pear-hard-cider#comments

Was getting ready for tomorrow's Sweetbird Buckwheat and Apple SD Bread bake and for once was organized enough to pinch off some of the buckwheat starter and make some lovely SD pancakes for breakfast.  I took 30 g of refreshed buckwheat starter and added;  60 G of bread flour, 60 g of buckwheat flour and 120 g of milk.  After mixing I let it stand on the counter for 1 hour and then in the fridge overnight for 8 hours.  This morning I took it out of the fridge and let it stand on the counter for 1 hour before mixing in 1 tsp of honey, a large pinch of salt,  1/

In the middle of March, we had a long weekend / short week in Sicily - great fun!

Varied breads - we had two completely different Pane Nero de Castelvetrano (one from a baker in Marsala, one from a supermarket in Sciacca) and one Pugliese I think (well, it looked like it) from a baker in Sciacca

I decided this week to have a go at the most recent (?) SF Sourdough posted by DMSnyder (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/27892/my-san-francisco-sourdough-quest-take-4)

Must admit that the timing on this was the most difficult - I couldn't work out how to get all these 16 and 20 hour chunks in!

When was that again?

I'm always a bit confused about Easter.

I'm never sure when it's going to happen. Last year it was at the end of April. This year it's the 8th! As usual, I visit the Wiki Easter page in an attempt to, for once and for all, understand about full moons, spring equinoxes, Julian and Gregorian calendars and... well, that's usually where I give up.

This bread is an adaptation of my Coffee flavored Rye bread I made a little while ago.  This time I tried to get a stronger coffee flavor so at the suggestion of my fellow "Mad Scientist" bread baker DA Brownman, I added espresso powder to the recipe.  I also increased the amount of onion since I wanted a more pronounced onion flavor in the final product.  If you are not a big onion

http://www.flickr.com/photos/67544166@N06/sets/72157627650212109/