Blog posts

Alnwick Farmers’ Market

Friday 30th August 2013

I have really enjoyed reading other TFL regulars posting about their baking adventures in relation to their local farmers’ markets.   I attended my own local market on Friday of last week and thought I’d do a short blog post with some photographs of the products I offer for sale.   I’ve posted formulae for most of these more than once before, but it may be instructive for me to give more description for each of them here, as they are currently made.

I haven't made this bread in a long time but it is a real treat, and gets devoured as treats tend to do.  The precise formula doesn’t really matter so much with this bread – any light sourdough will do - it is the addition of polenta and pepitas (aka, pumpkin seeds, “polenta pepita” is just more fun to say) that makes the magic.  The combination is featured in Tartine Bread with the addition of rosemary and corn oil but I’ve never tried it that way.  I like the versatility of this herbless version.  A little cranberry sauce on a toasted slice really sings.

As stressful as the last few weeks were for me in the business, I was fortunate to find 3 days to get away to my favourite B.C.

We had a crowd over on Firday night for a pizza party.  Of the dozen balls of dough I prepared, we made 10 pizzas in my wfo with various toppings.  I was the pizziaolo and with all of the activity there were no photos taken of any of the final products :(

This is a favorite here, but i decided to tweak the formula abit as i was short on whole wheat flour. To compensate for the shortage of ww flour, i increased the soaker by 20%. The dough was also fermented in the fridge during the initial fermentation for 7 hours, so i decided to add 1.5 tsp of diastatic wheat malt flour.

Having almost twice the levain on hand, i decided to increase the total dough yield and bake 2.3 kg dough into 4 batards.

A week ago i started my own starter, the wild yeast starter i found here. After a week, my starter looked a bit like an ADHD-starter. Very active, bubbles, smelled nice so even though i planned on baking after 14 days, i already baked something.

And... wauw. Amazing! The taste, the texture... i am in love. I made a Norwich Sourdough, an easy first-time sourdough but one that i will continue to bake.

Some pictures; before final rise overnight in the fridge: 

This is from the same sourdough burger buns dough that has been retarded overnight

It being summer in AZ, we are baking our pizzas on the gas grill outside.  We prefer the big old GE inside for pizzas but the gas grill does a half decent job with the pizza stone heated up.  One plus is that the gas grill can get to 650 F and the crust is super crispy, even though the top may not be browned enough.

See through pepperoni can go under the cheese adn still bake up well trapping that fat next to the sauce.

Using the recipe from a member here (dwfender) to produce this lovely soft burger bun.

In order to produce a healthier bun yet maintaining its fluffy texture. I replaced 30% of the white bread flour with wholewheat flour and increased the milk by 45g.

So with these produce pack we are 12 weeks into a 26 week season. I can't believe I am already that far and still coming up with new ideas for breads. My maple oat idea hasn't worked out yet but we are thinking closer to October will be a good time for that one. This weeks bread was Sundried Tomato and Basil. This bread was easily one of the best breads of the season. It has a slight red tint to the whole bread with a rustic floured crust. there were more orders for this one as well so I know it was popular. As far as this weeks farmers market I got pretty ambitious.