Blog posts

  Last week I went on a short vacation to Vermont and usual we visited King Arthur Flour and several cheese shops.  We also visited Sugar Bush Farms where they tap their own trees for 4 different grades of maple syrup as well as numerous varieties of cheddar cheese.  We of course loaded up with a ton of different cheeses and assorted grades of fresh maple syrup.

A really crazy, busy week. I fed the starter, but did not get round to making the dough until the next evening. There was no time to make the loaf, so the dough sat in the fridge for another night and day. The next evening I took it out, briefly kneaded it and formed a loaf. Back in the fridge overnight. She did not look impressive by the next morning. I was in a rush and left the oven on too high a temperature. She burst out of her skin, and rewarded my neglect with a really tasty loaf with a great crumb. Thank you sourdough!

I've been thinking of different methods of baking crusty lean loaves in my clay pot (it's my only baking gear, no oven or fancy grills) lately. One that should be easy but gives me results as close as an oven can get, that means a brown crackly crust, scores that bloom and an open crumb. The heat of the pot is very uneven, the bottom is extremely hot while the top is too cool so the only way to get an even bake is to let the top and bottom of the bread face the extremely hot bottom of the pot.

As this August has unofficially turned into the Hamelman Pain au Levain batard month, I thought that I'd submit one more entry to the mix.  I did a TFL search for hamelman pain au levain baguette after baking my version as a batard.  And in the vast compendium of our website here I could not find a single reference to anyone ever having done his batard as a baguette .

I have a friend who wanted a loaf with more whole wheat in it, so I decided to try Jeffrey Hamelman's Whole Wheat Levain. It is 50% whole wheat and 50% bread flour. Hydration is 69%. I used KA white whole wheat. I think it turned out pretty good! I like how the crumb turned out. I am working on using a lighter touch when handling and forming the loaf.

Definitely a "kitchen day" here chez Casa Witty...

First on the agenda, bake the batch of Chelsea Buns that I got going yesterday. I pinched Drogon's recipe and method in lieu of my usual one. Have to say it was a beautiful dough to work with; silky, stretchy and so easy to handle. Filled the buns with a mix of 65g melted butter, 300g of raisins, 75g caster sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/8 tsp cloves, 1/8 tsp nutmeg, pinch of cardamom. The verdict?

I've been experimenting with tin loaves -- my family like a tall loaf with a light texture and this one is 10% wholemeal (100%), 10% white stoneground and 80% strong Canadian white.

I'm in the UK and my white stoneground comes from either Stoate's in Shaftesbury or Bacheldre Mill in... Bacheldre, Powys, Wales. The 100% wholemeal for this load was a Waitrose Duchy Originals Organic. The 80% was Strong Canadian White bread flour (from Waitrose, Sainburys also do one which I think is identical).

Flour 600g Canadian, 75 g wholemeal, 75 g stoneground white

My tendencies are to find and try to duplicate interesting breads coming from our talented lot of bakers on TFL.  But over time, especially quite recently, it is hard to not notice that there are a lot of folks who love to bake Jeffrey Hamelman's Pain au Levain.  So the carrot was placed before the donkey and I took the bait too.

For my first bread entry I thought it appropriate to try a straightforward, relatively low hydration bread. Jeffrey Hamelman's "Pain Au Levain" which he refers to as "so emphatically french" seemed a perfect  choice.

There were quite a few posts on this website regarding the Jewish Rye from Secrets of a Jewish Baker. I figured it was time I gave it a try. To be honest, I realized halfway through that the recipe I was using was for one loaf, not two, so I had to knead together 2 smaller loaves halfway into the second proof. Anyway, not too pretty, but very edible!