Blog posts

So my love for spelt continues to grow.  I loved the poppy baguettes and thought cranberries with be a nice addition. Continued with the intentionally low profile elongated batard which yields more slightly smaller and more crusty slices.  I tried the staggered retard to get through this bake and was mostly successful but saw the dough acting less vigorously towards the last. bake.  Had they all been baked in the first round all would have been quite well with the world.  

CranPoppy Spelt

Makes 1 - 943 g loaf

Build 1 (12 hours)

2 Starter

  It's been a few weeks since my last post.  I've been very busy, traveling to Costa Rica on vacation which was amazing and upon my return we added another family member to our pack.  I am happy to introduce Max who is our new 9 month mixed breed puppy.

 Flavored with cocoa powder and adorned with semi sweet chocolate chips, these muffins are one of the best ways to start your day.

My first blog post. How is it that my SD is never sour? This was retarded for 3 hours in the fridge but I have also tried retarding overnight and it still has no tinge of sourness...sweet n buttery though

Wanted to use some of the lavender that's growing like crazy in our garden. Inspired by the Provençal formulae by Karin et al. Taste is different - complex, bready and savory. It's semi-sour because I used 2.5 g yeast to get this done in a day. 

Formula:

120 g 100% starter

436 g Bread flour

400 g water

32 g whole wheat

32 g Rye flour

2.5 g active dry yeast

17 g salt

1 TBS chopped lavender leaves

1 TBS chopped Rosemary leaves

40 g creme de cassis liqueur (any sweet liqueur will do I'd imagine)

Floyd and Chris,

Thank you for your post. I am working on getting the original Laraburu yeast and bacteria. Can you give me some advice on how to access the yeast and bacteria files and how to get a sample of the yeast and bacteria to start a starter? Are there charges to get specific samples?  I assume once I get the bacteria and yeast I add them to warm water and then add some whole wheat flour and let it rise.  Can you give me more details and links on how to get the starter, bacteria and yeast to grow and form a new starter with Laraburu yeast and bacteria?

King George V of England, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and Wilhelm II of Germany were cousins. Their family squabbles created WW1 a war that could not be settled until the end of WW2.

We've been having such hot couple of weeks here in London that I've been struggling to even think of baking. But I have made an exception for my birthday and baked myself a lovely birthday treat - a tangy lemony cake. A perfect end to a day with a nice hot cup of tea.

Full recipe in my blog here

Just finished baking a couple of loaves of Tartine sourdough.  Handling of this wet dough has become much easier after watching some You Tube videos showing how to shape. I have found that doing an overnight proofing in the refrigerator makes the Scoring much easier.  It also gives better time flexibility in baking as you do not have to let the dough warm up after the overnight proofing. All of this is outlined in the book Tartine bread.  This is a fun bread to make.   Tastes great too.

Okay this loaf definitely blew a tire and I am not sure why. Overproofed? Underproofed?  Poorly shaped?  Poorly scored?

This was a simple lean hearth loaf using my new SD starter and following dabrownman's excellent instructions:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/34282/modifying-peter-reinharts-recipes-sour-dough-starter