Blog posts

A new prospect is on the horizon.

This new prospect keeps me focused, keeps me pushing, keeps me mixing and baking.

At breakfast and dinner my starter is fed freshly milled flour still warm from its transition from grain to powder. Everyday I watch, smell and taste the starter and notice how temperature and different milling techniques play a role in its development. The biggest change I have ever noticed took place this week when I changed my milling practice.

Focaccia is one of our favorite breads for sandwiches. We've found tuna fish salad, Italian sausage with carmalized onions and peppers, and grilled portabella mushrooms with red pepper aoili are especially good. The freezer is well stocked with lean sourdough loaves, and baguettes so for this week's sourdough bake I made focaccia. This 72% hydrated loaf is 100% KA Bread flour (17% prefermented in the levain) 4.2% extra-virgin olive oil, and 2% salt. The dough was retarded 15 hours overnight, and baked at 400°F  in a convection oven.

So this was supposed to be my week off as there is a festival in town that will make going to the market chaotic. Well I got some new stones and opted to follow through with my Saturday bake and give to friends and neighbors.  

I thought I'd take advantage and improve upon my week 1 bake of Super Grain Whole Wheat Sour.

Troi au Levain (3 seed/grains 3 flours)

For 2 - 25 oz loaves

Soaker:

6 oz each millet, red quinoa, flax  toasted

18 oz H20 (I'd scale this down next time to maybe 13 oz)

Three loaves all 30% Whole Wheat, one with Walnuts and Rosemary, one with Sunflower Seeds, and one Plain. The crumb is great too.

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I find myself on a rare occasion of being bored, having no work to do and no bread to bake or post.  Perhaps a good opportunity to share a little about my journey to bread baking.

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Little did I know at the time, but the 'knead' to make bread was deeply rooted within my creative core long ago...

Lately I've been baking a lot, as I decided my family's appetites did not quite coincide with either the type or amount of bread that I wanted to bake.   This has led to a conundrum, as I have occasionally made a great many loaves and then ended the day with no bread in the house.   Suddenly my barely tolerated bread has become a must have, so I have to make up the difference with a few more loaves after the big bake is over.   Yesterday I made these loaves which all went to good homes by the end of the day.  

We are down to baking bread on Friday’s only now and outside in the mini oven at that until the amount of bread in the freezer disappears and the temperature gets below 90 F - sometime in late September.  We went with a more simple multigrain formula this time with 6 of them in the levain only.

I have been very interested in baking with an organic sprouted wheat flour.  

I've read so many good things about it's health benefits and it's exceptionally delicious flavor.  

I ordered a few small bags of Arrohead Mills Organic Sprouted Wheat Flour.  The price is a bit dear for these little bags of flour.  I'm so happy with the flour.  I can't wait to make a carrot cake.  Free shipping from Amazon.com and the flour had excellent reveiws.  

I have been writing down lots of brain-storming ideas sice doing the macarons out of Bouchon Bakery. Tonight was my first attempt at one of my ideas, a s'more macaron. The recipe needs some adjusting. I'm really happy with the result. I will post more as the project continues.