Blog posts

Hello,

This was my first attempt working with flax seeds.  I got a bag of brown whole flax seeds from the grocery store, soaked them at 300% hydration for 12 hrs.   Separately, I made a 3lb / 1362g dough at 68% hydration using 90% AP flour, 10% einkorn flour, and a touch of honey (5%).   20% of the flour was a liquid levain at 125% hydration, 50% of the flour was a cold flour soaker at 80% hydration.   For the flax seed soaker, I wasn't sure in advance how many seeds I'd want in the dough, so I just soaked a bunch of seeds, more than I'd need.  

Cat and I decided to go for a hike yesterday on Mount Sutro, the wooded mountain in the middle of San Francisco.  Since we knew we’d be in for some calorie-burning, we stopped on the way at our neighborhood pizzeria, Pizzetta 211, a tiny place that is often rated as the best in the City.  Cat had a bacon and butternut squash pie with chipotle crème fraiche.  I had one with homemade sausage, radicchio and Gruyere.  Sorry, I didn't have my camera along.

I have been working through an abundance of whole rye flour and strong bread flour lately so I’ve dropped anchor in the sourdough rye section of Hamelman’s Bread.  I couldn’t quite make up my mind this week so I picked two.  First was the Whole-Rye and Whole-Wheat Bread, baked pretty much by the book.  Next was the Sourdough Rye with Walnuts.  I turned that one into something a little different.

... and now for something different.

We helped celebrate a good friends birthday last night––the same person who I have recently started baking a weekly sourdough loaf for :)

These are so delicious, I can't stop snacking on them.  Everyone loves these, make extra because they won't last long and save some for baking.  I also make lemon for baking and eating. 

The peels were dried in my oven, set on Bread Proof mood.  I had a large batch but, I imagine these would also dry very nicely in the B&T proofer, using a dry setting, No water would be added to your proofer and a higher setting of heat would be used for drying.

Let me start by apologizing to the generations of German bakers before me. I have been trying to learn about the dense style dark bread sometimes called Pumpernickel or Schrotbrot or Roggen Vollkornbrot.  I've baked the Hamelman Horst Bandle bread and liked it after I finally figured out how to bake it at home. Then I have been fooling with the Barm process and Barm breads, both white and rye flours. I read a comment from Dan Lepard about soaking whole berries in dark ale after simmering to soften.