Blog posts

It's been a while, since May, that I posted here.  Off to the northern reaches of the Atlantic seaboard for family time in NY, and then further upstream to the Boston area where I joined Varda and Joan in a bread session at their Bread Obsession for a wonderful two weeks.  As soon as we arrived back home we had family visit here for a week, and now I'm finally catching up on day-to-day life.

We love Ian's take on this bread. So much so that I had to make it again this week as we were out and I had roasted a turkey breast and we needed something yummy for sandwiches. This bread is a delight to work with. I changed a couple things . My starter is always 100% hydration so I use less water in the final dough. I also " autolyse" using the levain with the flours and water since my levain is s major source of the water in the dough and without it there isn't any way to autolyse the flours. I subbed in 200g of AYW for part of the water.

Very delicious! Thank you for sharing, Ian!

My friends from the east coast are visiting with their family.  We last saw each other seven years ago and we're all excited about the reunion.  Our kids have grown so much since then, and we, the parents, are getting old...

      This was an interesting experimental bread.  I decided to use a potato cut up into little pieces along with the polenta in the actual porridge.  I wanted to have actual pieces of potato in the bread and it worked like a charm.  It was especially interesting on the crust of the bread where the potatoes that were sticking out got nice and crisp like potato sticks.

I used a bottle of hard apple cider in the main dough hoping it would give a nice tart apple flavor but you don't really taste it very much so water will work just as well.

Got the new mixer now adapting TARTINE to it. Basically same recipe as I normally use but am setting mixer on speed 2 for 8 minutes as recommended by Jef Hammelmann. Haven't done the complete loaf yet but am intending to post pictures so please do not despair as I will be back tomorrow. I Actually used pumpernickel flour . I think amounts are consistent with the Baker's % but if I'm wrong let me know, I was shooting for 80% hydration.

So, I spent yesterday at the office, and left Tillie to decide what, if anything, we would bake up to celebrate the remainder of the weekend. Well, I'm thinking she spent much of her time basking in the sun and not researching, checking inventory or thinking much at all, and what was her choice? Cinnamon rolls... she decided we needed a decadent, soft, sweet and buttery treat.

I was lazy and didn't sift the powdered sugar. My brother said it's just proof they're handmade. Works for me, as long as they aren't for company.

This week’s bake was a redo of the 70% rye SD with sunflower seeds and following my theme from the previous two weeks, I replaced the 30% white flour with whole wheat.

The formula was more or less the same, except that I increased the hydration (because I was using whole wheat flour which is a thirstier than white) and the percentage of sunflower seeds from 16% to 20%.

Here’s the formula:

What an odd Lucy bread, actually 2 in a row, not retarding of the levain or the dough - a 2 day bread including the 18 hours to sprout, grind and sift the 9 grains used for this bread.  The 8 grains were spelt, rye, white and red wheat, oat, buckwheat, Kamut and barley.

From Bien Cuit.

This has lots of different whole grains and seeds. I made this in the past and really enjoyed it. It didn't have the oven spring of the first time I made it but the taste was still awesome. I took a boule to pair with spinach dip on the weekend and everyone loved it.

This has two leavens:

1. First levain is 40 g of starter, 80 g cool water, 80 flour. Second levain is 120 g of toasted millet, 80 g toasted amaranth, 20 g black sesame seeds, 16 g of dark rye flour, 20 g starter and 120 warm water. Both sat overnight.

This recipe is from Sourdough: Recipes for Rustic Fermented Breads, Sweets, Savories, and More from
Sarah Owens. She won the James Beard Award for 2016 in baking books. I don't own the book but I found a copy of the recipe online.

I changed the method a bit to allow for an autolyse with just flour but the dough was really stiff and I probably should have added the oat soaker in at the same time. Anyhow, this was my method which differs a bit from the book.

1. Make levain with 40 g water, 30 g starter and 40 grams spelt. Let sit overnight.