Blog posts

Hello All. First post here of TFL. I had been blogging about my bread for a while with blogspot but I seem to be spending more and more time on this website lately so I thought I'd move my blog over here as well. I've learned a lot from the postings on this site. It is such a great resource for bakers, so hopefully I will get some constructive feedback on my baking by posting here.

I'm a little late for a St. Paddy's day bread, but I do have to say this one is worth the wait.  The combination of Guinness, polenta with mixed whole grain flakes as a porridge and potatoes created a wonderfully moist and flavorful loaf.  I threw in some freshly sprouted and ground whole wheat flour just for good measure.  If you have not tried a porridge bread yet, than all I can say is you don't know what you are missing!

I decided to take the new dutch oven for a test drive using Ken Forkish's Field Blend #2 recipe.  So I studied the recipe trying to decide on a way to bake it the Wendy way.

Levain

50 gr Wheat Sourdough
50 gr Rye Sour
400 gr KA Bread Flour
100 gr KA White Whole Wheat
400 gr Water

First, a shout-out to JoeCox2 for alerting TFLers to KitchenAid having made their NSF-rated KSM7990 mixer (refurbished) available for less than $400, with free shipping at that.  I had been on the fence for some time about a replacement for my KitchenAid K5SS mixer, which makes all kinds of unpleasant noises even when running with no load.

I had some time in the kitchen and came up with this stuffed focaccia bread, it turned out pretty good.  Details can be found here

www.mybreadandbrot.com

I've been a little lazy about posting this but here is the third and final installment of trying to satisfy my curiosity.  Both of my earlier postings of these tests can be found on my blog here. 

This beauty has been about 5 years in the making!

Dark, moist and so flavorsome.

Delicious with cheese and strong meats.

Gorgeous with soups and even better with salted butter and Rose’s Apricot conserve.

Full of big apricot chunks!

I thought I would have a go at decorating my "everyday bread".  It was surprisingly easy, a cardboard cut out leaf stencil, egg wash and dusting with flour.  It worked out quite well.

Lucy decided to go whole hog with this one claiming that she wanted to do a 100% sprouted whole grin bread just to see what it would taste like…. even  if it would too easily over ferment, over proof and become Frisbee in the end.  She is way more interested in taste than form or structure it seems.

One of the most intriguing questions in my (admittedly short!) sourdough adventure thus far has been: How do I create a loaf that I can consistently proof in the refrigerator and bake straight from that cold environment, without it under or over-proofing? While the length of bulk fermentation is important in this calculus, it’s not the only part.