Blog posts

Oh, Strawberries!  They are abound now and will be gone soon.

I was thrilled that a local 3 generation family owned farm with organic, pesticide free,  picked daily, fruits and veggies, have opened a second stand down the road from me.  They have another stand near by but this one is super convenient for me.  Now I have three to pick from all within less than 15 minutes drive and, that's not counting the 2 farmer's market's.  

So I've stuck with it into week two (lets see about week 10).  To prep for this market I have to be prepared as i work M-F and that means after work Friday is the likely time I'll be bulk fermenting/shaping/retarding.  Followed by waking up early to bake the loaves and get down to the market in time.   

Warning - this contains lots of photos

I outlined the experiments I wanted to undertake with regards to GF baking  in a previous post and here is a brief personal log of the first steps.

I baked gluten free breads with a mix of tapioca flour, potato flour and five other flours using instant yeast as rising agent and psyllium husk as gelling agent.

The psyllium husks have been soaked with 20g water per g Psyllium.

            
 Levain

35 gr Starter

140 gr di H20

140 gr Semola  di Grano Duro Rimacinata

Left at Room  temperature 22 ° for 10 H 

Final Dough

350 + 50  gr di H20

4 gr of Malt

560 gr di Semola di grano Duro Rimacinata

13 gr Salt

Method

Enriched yeast dough with butter, milk and sugar. I ferment half the dough without butter and sugar overnight using my bread yeast culture. The following day I incorporate the next half flour with sugar, butter and spices (I use caraway seeds here) . Let dough rise till doubled then shape in rings and place them close to each other on a tray.  Dissolve some sugar in milk and use it to glaze the rings then sprinkle with seasme seeds. Let them rest until puffed up, an hour or so, and bake at 180-200 till golden.

Okay my second Attempt at Feta Cheese and Hot Pepper bread!
but this time I use a cast iron dutch oven and I am very happy!

Having never made Ezekiel Bread before, this was a real treat for Lucy.  Us older ex-Hippie types haven’t made it for decades.   One reason is the 2 day sprouting for the beans and rice in one large pile and then sprouting whole grains in another.

baking a  SD rye inspired by Khalid with little adaption of my own.

200g rye starter  at 100% hydration

54g dark rye flour

150g rye flour

25g whole spelt flour

200g bread flour

400g AP flour

600g water (hold back 240g)

15g salt

20 dates soaked in hot water 10mins. seeded n blend with 240g water

80g toasted sunflower seeds

dough hydration 72%

mix AP flour and Starter and 360g water. let rest 8 hours (sponge)

I wanted to bake a Rye bread from Peter Reinhart's book : Whole grain books, as a change from Hamelman's Rye recipes.

With 45 % Rye flour, and 55% whole wheat flour, the bread is very wholesome, and enriched. It contains butter, honey, caraway, and nigella seeds. The bread is leavened with the 45% Rye flour amount as Rye sour, but the final dough contains 2.25 tsp of instant yeast. The bulk fermentation and final fermentation takes from 50-60 minutes at most.