Blog posts

I started out to make Ru's seeded sourdough which I love.  I ran out of levain (didn't calculate properly) so added in the left over from the first refreshment of the refrigerated starter.  I am not sure how much water I added to it to thin it from 66% hydration - a dumb move as it was quite thin when I used it. 

12 midday - toasted 15 g chia seed, 37 g sesame seed and 22 g flaxseed. I had blitzed sesame and flaxseed a little in the coffee grinder. I then added 55 g water but it sucked it all up so I added another 55 g water and left to soak.

After my last attempt I decided to reduce the autolyse time and see if it helped.  I made 2 x 600gm loaves - one had 1 hour autolyse, the other had 2 hour autolyse.  I withheld 20 gms water in both and found this made a huge difference.  I did 100 SLAFs, rested 5 minutes then added salt and did another 100 SLAFs.  

I bought a boatload of spelt berries and have been using them bit by bit in all of my bakes, but I decided to try a loaf that was 45%+ whole grain using 25% spelt, hard red winter wheat (Redeemer) and rye. I tried the Full Proof Baking method of making two separate doughs, one whole grain and one white, and then laminating them together. I also divided the dough into 2 loaves during the lamination stage, which Full Proof Baking recommends. I've always divided during the shaping stage. 

 Visiting Altamura's two famous bakeries (Oct 2019)

I first read about Daniel Leader's experience in Altamura about a year and a half ago.  So enchanted by the rich history of Altamura's DOP bread that I said that I had to go to Altamura whenever I visited Italy.

Hi - I am new to this forum and breadmaking but I have just acquired a Morphy Richards 48220 breadmaker.  The instruction manual explains really well about the different types of yeast and states that all the recipes use the active dry yeast and not the quick rising type. 

I purchased some Allinson's dry active yeast (see photo) but the instructions on the Allinson can (100g) say that the yeast has to be activated un warm water before use and is not suitable for bread makers.   

I’ve been away for the last couple of weeks due to an impromptu trip to Oklahoma City for a horse show and then another trip to Las Vegas where my daughter ran her second half marathon. She did amazing finishing well in the top half even though she hadn’t trained for 5 weeks due to an arthritic flare.

It feels good to get back to baking. A friend requested a loaf with whole grains. So some oat porridge, some Fed Fife, some Einkorn with a touch of honey and butter!

Recipe 

Makes 3 loaves 

Fattoria degli Usignoli in San Donato in Fronzano, Tuscany. Spectacular Tuscan scenery and only thirty minutes from Florence by train. This will be our 10th year at Fattoria and will actually be our 17th course there. The 5-day course will run from Saturday 2 May until Wednesday 6 May, 2020.

Hi Everyone.. we're going to see a friend for dinner this weekend and I'm going to bring dessert. But it's complicated.. I need to bring something that is vegan, gluten free, has no dairy, peas, corn or wheat.. I could pass and bring a salad but figured that someone on the board has an idea..  I thought I could make a toffu based cream cheese pie and make a non-gluten free graham cracker crust, but any other ideas?  I've never done that before an am not sure how good the toffu cream cheese would taste.. Thanks.. frank!

Hi, so this is my 6th round of baguette baking. Overall, much much better oven spring and crumb than before. I think the next big thing to work on is my scoring technique. I documented the process pretty meticulously this time, so let me know if you spot anything I can improve on. Thanks! Recipe is at the bottom of the post.

Photos