Blog posts

Many years ago, we lived for a while in a small town in France.  Every day I would walk to the bakery around the corner to buy our daily baguettes.  Could life be any better?   When it was my turn to order, I would conjure up my finest French: “Bonjour, Madam, je voudrais deux baguettes, s’il vous plait.”  To which Madam would reply “Combien”?  How many?  I would meekly raise two fingers.

I've been fascinated with the fougasse shape ever since reading about it in one bread book or another, but I finally got to see some examples "in the wild" when visiting Nice earlier this Spring, where it seemed like there was a loaf of bread I couldn't resist at nearly every turn in the maze of narrow streets inVieux Nice. And then there was the socca and pissaladière, but I digress. Here are a couple examples from the market in Nice, one plain, and one filled:

This is my second take on the SBFI Finnish Rye. Didn't get so much spring on the first take, but it was tasty and seemed pretty popular. I only got one slice out of two loaves.

This time I focused on a little more gluten development, mixing for about 8 minutes, then adding the soakers and mixing for another 3-4. Bulk ferment was 3 hours with three folds, final proof about an hour both at 78F. Also added a couple of Tbs of vital gluten to the mix. The dough is pretty sticky stuff; wet hands help.

After reading Don Sadowsky's guest post "The Hole Truth" on Barbara's wonderful blog "Bread & Companatico", I knew I had met a kindred spirit.

Tonight's dinner was a white sauce pizza. Mornay sauce made with Peccorino Romano, fresh Mozzerella, Baby Spinach sauteed in garlic-infused olive oil and balsamic vinegar, fresh asparagus tossed with garlic-infused olive oil and tarragon, and Feta cheese.

Our pizza dough is a simple 50/50 mix of semolina and AP flours, water, olive oil and salt. We make enough for three pies, divide and freeze two rounds, using the remaining round immediately for that evening's pie. This crust was the thawed third round of the last batch made a couple of weeks past.

This is a somewhat off topic blog post, but I promised Janetcook that I'd send some pictures of the vast, bustling proth5 estate which has undergone the usual spring transition since she last saw it.

My retirement is going well. I have traveled more than I really wanted to but have managed to spend considerable time at the location that is the most exotic to me in all the world - my own crumbled abode.

I haven't felt like baking much lately. You see my Father-in-law lost his one sided fight with Parkinson's. He, and I, are NOT religious, in fact with think it is a lot of hooey. But I digress, he was a brilliant man, full of laughter and knowledge. Self made, hard working, dedicated family man.

We left Vienna on our bikes with our group of 50 on May30th. We have been in a different town each night. We stay in hostels, inns and a college dorm so far. We are in Linz tonight. It is almost 10 PM here now. Very full days of cycling the Velo 6 route. Here are some pics of the lovely bakery goods from the center of Linz. A very very busy place. On a Tuesday at 5 PM almost everything was gone from some shops. Ice cream is incredible here as is everything we have eaten so far. Love the coffee also ! Since we are burning so many calories I can indulge as I wish :) Lovely.

Today's bake was Hamelman's Pain au Levain with Whole Wheat Flour. This is one of a series of versions of Pain au Levain in Bread. I have baked all of them - several, like this one, many times. My favorite is whichever one just cooled enough to eat. This one was pretty yummy. Crunchy crust, chewy crumb. Complex wheaty flavor.

Pretty loaves, too, if I do say so myself.