Blog posts

Some time ago, Pat (proth5) posted her formula for baguettes. This was in the context of our "great baguette quest" of some months back. We were playing with higher hydration doughs and cold fermentation à la Gosselin and Bouabsa.

Pat's formula is levain-based and employs a 65% hydration dough. She has insisted repeatedly that, while higher hydration is one route to a more open, holey crumb, fermentation and technique in shaping the baguettes are at least as important and that good technique can achieve the desired open crumb even with a dryer dough.

It is still cold here so I made a big pot of black bean soup this evening.   I also made whole wheat rolls with organic stone ground whole wheat flour that grown and milled by flourgirl51.

I've been asked (via Messages!!) to post the recipe I used for Pitas.  I made two recipes, but I'll post the one that was designed as a Pita recipe.  Apparently just about any bread recipe will work, although I don't know about high-hydration doughs.

In my experimenting, I've become curious about the role of the yeast.  My conjecture is that the yeast just helps with the development of the gluten and of the formation of a gluten skin (as I think someone called it).  I don't think it has much of any role in the puffing up.

Last night I made two loaves of Honey Wheat Bread that I found on Allrecipes.com - it is really good, although it didn't rise quiet like I'd hoped. That said, it's still very good. I went "simple" for dinner tonight and made Tuna Melts on the bread I made yesterday...mmm, yummy! I need to get my camera working so I can take some pictures. I'm looking forward to doing a lot more, and sharing with you all. This site looks great - I'm glad I came across it.

This is a very basic simple recipe that came with my Bell La Cloche...recipe by Chuck Williams of Williams-Sonoma. 

This is a straight dough...1 pkg. ady, 1 tsp. sugar, 1-3/4 c. warm water '110' degrees F., 5 cups hard wheat unbleached flour or All-Purpose flour, 3/4 tsp. salt. 

Sylvia 

My husband is out with his bike cycling team today and Im doing my favorite thing 'baking' of coarse!

Megapretzels, sunflowerbread and carrot-almond bread

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The last time I made caraway rye bread, I used the recipe in The Joy of Cooking. We really like it. But as I was leafing through The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum, I noticed her recipe for rye bread. A recipe that looked too good.

Hi. My name is Leigh, and I consider myself a pretty expert cook. I've been teaching myself for almost 4 years now, but I come from a wonderful line of cooks and bakers. I've made a few breads over the past few months, but I'm definitely still learning.

I made some amazing dinner rolls for Valentines Day last week, and I have some Honey Wheat Bread rising now - it's taking forever, but I have good hopes. It looks yummy, at least! And I guess that's all for now!

I wanted to make a bread for a recent gathering of friends.  My preference was for something sweet but not a sticky, gooey kind of sweet.  After paging through a number of books, I came across a recipe in Beth Hensperger's The Bread Bible for a sweet vanilla challah that sounded like it would fit the bill.  The recipe called for just 1/2 cup of sugar in a two-loaf batch of bread, so it wasn't excessively sweet.  The flavor, though, was driven by 1-1/2 tablespoons of vanilla extract in the dough and another teaspoon of vanilla extract in the glaze.