Blog posts

We love these English muffins and try to make them a little bit different each time we make them.  This time we used some of the left over SD levain for the panettone.  We made them the thickness that is called for in the recipe at 3/4” for the first time.  Normally we make them thinner since the puff so much. 

After the last panettone fiasco where they were under baked and plopped themselves onto the carpet when overturned on the skewers to cool, we decided to do some origami panettone molds out of one inside layer of parchment paper and one outside layer of regular printer paper.

My 1st Bread ever

The PICTURE on my photo site >    http://visualsenses.smugmug.com/Food-food-macros-and-cooking/HOME-BAKED-Bread/27735184_ztqBZF#!i=2337590014&k=BgqrdMd&lb=1&s=O

Pain de Campagne, following DiMuzio's formula in his "Bread Baking, an Artisan's Perspective" book.  Thanks to richkaimd for recommending this great book.

90% KA unbleached bread flour

10% Hodgson Mills rye flour

68% hydration

We had some left over YW levain from out panettone bake we will try to pull off today.  Rather than toss it we decided to make a baguette so we could practice our slashing and have some bread for tonight’s bruschetta.

I finally got up the nerve to try this recipe and to my surprise, was not that difficult.  I had this batch of dough on the go when Floyd posted his raspberry version.  As raspberries and blueberries are my favourite field berries and are (almost) always in my fridge, I used a half and half mix of berries.  This is a seriously tasty coffee or dessert bread and one of the best things I have ever taken out of my oven.  As Floyd says, "HEAVEN!" Amen to that.

Fed the starter dark rye flour Sunday evening.  Monday morning combined:

1000g bread flour

680g warm water

Left that as an autolyse for half an hour, then added:

20g salt

180g ripe starter

Mixed it briefly.  Stretched and folded every hour over the next three hours, then put it in the fridge.

I made my 2nd loaf today. I modified the recipe in lesson 2 a bit by adding whole wheat flour, AP (unfortunately bleached - all I had on hand), and KAF bread flour. I used one of my tissue blades for the scoring, and I'm very impressed how well it worked. It was like slicing through air, absolutely no drag at all. Granted, tissue blades were originally used in order to take very thin slices of tissues for sampling, so I shouldn't be surprised. They're also used in some crafts (like beading) which is why I had some on hand.

Today, I made another run at David Snyder's San Francisco Sourdough.  Gosh, I love that bread  and it just gets tastier the longer it sits (although it doesn't sit too long).  I made two loaves today in order to bring one to share with my quilt group.  The ladies have commented on the bread I've been having with my lunch, so I thought that might be a broad hint to share a loaf or two.  We'll see how it goes over - if they enjoy it as much as we do at home there won't be much left.  Two large boules -