Blog posts

100% Semolina Black and White Sesame Seed Bee Striped Sourdough 81% hydration

Profile picture for user Benito

This is the third time I’ve bake this formula I first put together for the semolina CB.  I hadn’t baked it since that time and wanted to try it out again.  I finally received my new pH meter, the Hanna bread and dough model and used it for the first time for this bake.  I’ll know how it worked out when I finally slice this open, I will say I was surprised at how little a rise in the aliquot jar corresponded with the pH readings at which other well known bakers follow.  Now of course, pH will vary greatly based on the hydration and flour composition of the dough.

Butter toasted oat and honey loaf, Cozonac and cakes

Profile picture for user Kistida
I did more cooking than baking these last 3 weeks. But I did manage to squeeze in some bakes. My husband said he likes oat and honey breads too (this is after telling me he liked the swirly soft loaves and crusty ones, flat ones..) So, I set out to make him something to taste test, so far I've made these loaves with and without discards; 5 loaves later, it's safe to say he likes this bread! I love the hint and smell of honey in this bread. Also, they keep me full! Baked at 160-180°C 45-50 minutes (I use a glass loaf pan).

Semolina milk bread

Profile picture for user Ilya Flyamer

To continue the story of milk/sandwich bread, I decided to change it all up, and tried using semolina in the dough, to finally add an egg, increase the hydration (~70%), and do a double rise. Also made two loaves, but each was much smaller. Due to scheduling, I had to do a long retard too. Here is the formula: https://fgbc.dk/1moj

Starting All Over Again

Profile picture for user albacore

Starting All Over Again

I've been hit by a mystery starter affliction. The starter, levain and dough would rise well and in a timely manner. But when the dough went into the oven, loft and oven spring were poor.

52nd bake, 06/09/2021. 25% WW durum. 40% WW red.

Profile picture for user idaveindy

June 9, 2021.

So I've been playing a lot with stone-ground WW durum. It makes great flatbread/chapatis at 100%, and great egg-less noodles at 50% mixed with 50% Golden Temple white/red bag durum.

I wrote somewhere, that anything over 33% WW durum in a leavened loaf bread just doesn't seem to be workable.  It becomes a brick, or a rubbery sponge.

Mariana mentioned that there is a popular Russian flour mix that uses 25% durum, so I thought I'd play with that number.

Plan:

Hamburger Brioche Buns

I made these a while ago and thought to post them to my blog during our 4th COVID lockdown (bored). I learned how to make these during Chef Jacob Burton’s online culinary boot camp.  I learned the bun sizes for large, regular and slider buns.

155 g each for large (4.5 inch) buns - about 114 mm

100 g each for regular size (4 inch) buns - about 100 mm

55 g each for slider size (3 inch) buns - about 76 mm

A well-formed bun was baked using foil ring molds held together with a couple of staples.

5hr dough with Italian flours

Profile picture for user yozzause

 Italian La Molisana "00" DI GRANO TENARO 75% and il Molino Durum Wheat Fine Semolina. @ 75% and 25% respectively. 2 x Epi's out of the oven now and what a great day to have it on too! This is a 5 hour bulk fermentation using just 1% compressed yeast, it did finish at the desired dough temperature but did loose a bit of temperature during BF but was quite happy Final proving in the back of the station wagon which was quite a bit warmer than the house! i am very pleased with the results from these longer fermented doughs.

Help please with summer sourdough

Toast

Hi, my most-recent sourdough bake resulted in (with an apology to the real things) hockey pucks. The dough was clearly over proofed after a 10 hour or so overnight proof.

Followed the usual FWSY recipe for overnight 40% WW bread.

My kitchen's usually in the mid 60s F in the winter, and is now running in the mid 70s.

Should I use less leavain?

Colder water for the mix?

Thanks!

1-2-3 bake with Revived Starter

Toast

So my rye starter from almost 2 years ago is going strong. I did a 1:2:2 feeding and it doubled in 6 hours so I decided to bake a 1-2-3 loaf with it. The dough was super sticky, like octopus sticky (https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/60884/sticky-shaping-sticky-dough-or-when-it-too-sticky). I first tried wetting my hands, but that only worked a little bit, so then I had to just use flour, about 1/4 of a cup and it still stuck (like chewing gum, #3 on the link) to my Silpat.