Blog posts

I'm baking a lot, but, since it's summer, mostly for sale.

And then there are other time consuming projects like painting windows (with some tireless mosquitoes for company), massaging my husband's cramped neck (after installing aforementioned windows), and hunting for those friggin' Japanese beetles that turn my raspberry leaves into lace.

  Beetle "Lace"

Overnight Country Brown with modifications

September 8, 2013

My exploration of Ken Forkish's breads from Flour Water Salt Yeast continued this week. Hoping to get my timing closer to the ones he describes in the book, I needed to slow down fermentation. I made another large loaf of Forkish's “Overnight Country Brown.” I used filtered water at 63 ºF rather than at 80-90 ºF which Forkish prescribes, and I used 8% pre-fermented flour rather than the 12% called for in the published formula.

 http://nybakersbench.com/?p=132

Stan Ginsberg
www.nybakers.com

I had several of these ordered so couldn't cut them. I made one more for our cookout tonight. Wonderful family dinner by the pool. The Challah was so tender and slightly sweet with the addition of some extra honey and the golden raisins. 

One of the great things about TFL is that when I see an ingredient at the store, even though I've never used it before I know it will be good because of all the posts I've read.   So it was the other day while shopping at Costco, when a bag of Deglet Noor dates jumped into my basket and came home with me.   I've only eaten dates a few times, and don't like them so much as I find them too sweet and sticky.   Nonetheless, there they were and so had to be used.    The next day, I built up my rye sour way too much getting ready for market day and was

Been a busy month with the new business coming together, vacation, and the daily grind.  Missed a couple markets and I'm back.  Only 11 more markets left if my math is right.  Ran into some temperature issues and hit a ceiling of whole grain for retarding in form again.  Fortunately the bread came out quite nice and tastes great.  I'm trying to come up with a few variations of levains that are relatively simple and can be used as daily bread.  Then I'll have a variety to offer at the shop.  I want to stress improvisation in my business.

. . . once again a boule and a batard.  After 5 days away I fed my starter 1:1:1 using about 10% organic rye and strong bread flour for the feeding.  My mother must have liked seeing dad back as she more than doubled and fell back within 4 hours, so it was into the fridge to mix the next day.