Blog posts

Jeffrey Hamelman's pain au levain with mixed sourdough starters.  I've made this before as both baguettes and batards.  So this is nothing new now, although it has still only been a small handful of bakes so far.  I like the concept of the two starters, one stiff and one quite liquid.  As much for an interesting change of pace as well as the process.

The bread is thanks to its distinctive dark, aromatic crust and the mild crumb the ideal base for a variety of sandwiches with smoked sausage or old cheeses.

I make 2 bread. One of them with poolish that was 22 hours in the refrigerator (about +5C) and another one with poolish in the my kitchen (about +23C) 20 hours. Breads has different taste! 

Spelt poolish, Rye sourdough

A very good friend of mine is originally from the Boston area. During a recent conversation he told me about what he knew as "Star Bread". He says it is one of his favorites from back home, and that he hasn't been able to find it anywhere else.

Walnut-Fig Sourdough Bread: Variation on a favorite from SFBI Artisan II

David Snyder

7 December, 2015

This blog entry could have been titled “So many breads, so little time.” Or “time flies when you're having fun.”

100% Organic White Spelt Flour. A tiny bit disappointed that they did not rise more. I thought that the spelt flour gives it a subtle hint of caramel flavour. My partner tasted them and commented, "Mmm, these panini have attitude". 

This is among my best tasting breads, alla Tartine.

Levain was mixed Friday night using 1 tablespoon of starter from the fridge (last fed one week prior).

Saturday morning, about 15 hours later, I mixed the levain with 700 grams of water, 700 grams AP flour, 205 grams whole wheat and 95 grams whole rye.

Forty minutes or so later, I added 20 grams of salt and some extra water, enough to incorporate the salt into the dough, and enough to keep my hands from sticking. (Tartine suggests 50 gram but I find that to create a dough that is a bit too wet/pasty).

I've made a variety of breads in the last few weeks.  First of are a couple types of whole wheat bread.

This one is a 100% whole wheat bread at about 90% hydration.  The bread had a nice whole wheat flavor with minimal sourness.  The crumb felt dense but was not dry.  I would have liked more flavor contribution from the starter.

Is it still necessary to heat milk to avoid killing yeast?

And just when I thought I have to settle with toying between bread and all purpose flour ratio, I, happened to find this fantastic German Bread Flour Type 550 the other day at one of the bakery ingredients supply shop.

It's been over a month since I had a chance to post.  Between traveling to China for work and then going to NC for Thanksgiving time has been short.

Anyway, this bread was one I made after returning from China.  It ended up very tasty with a nice nutty flavor from the freshly milled Durum flour combined with the freshly milled whole rye flour.

I incorporated some rye and durum into the two build starter and added some bread flour for some added strength.