Blog posts

Our family traveled to Spain this past Spring, and Sevilla was our favorite city on the trip, we were there during Semana Santa.  We particularly enjoyed the Tortas de Aceite- yeast-leavened olive oil wafters laced with sesame and anise.  This version is a little different than the standard torta in that it is leavened with sourdough and uses star anise instead of anise seed.

A view of the courtyard in Sevilla's Alcazar, the Royal Palace.

We are now officially on the summer baking schedule.  No more large loaves.  Only 1 small one or possibly 2 if baked on the same day.  All bred baking is done in the mini oven outside.   This particular bake came in at over 1,300 g so it will have to be baked as 2 loaves one after the other to fit the mini oven.  Lucy isn’t quick with basic math.

The bread was a bit dense not very sour either

M

This morning I baked a sprouted wheat loaf.   I had made my first one the other day and it was an ugly duckling but delicious, so my plan was to make a prettier bigger one.   I succeeded on the bigger.

When I was a kid, thats what you used to say to each other!

Strange kids....

Without any further ado.....

What more can I say?

Beautiful…

So I wanted to try a no-knead bread again;  Just very plain and simple. Just white wheat flour, water, salt and some yeast. 
1 kg total dough weight, 70% hydration. About a 1/4 tsp of IDY and 12 grams of salt. 

Just mixed it all together and left for a night. Then did some S&F and left to proof. First time in an oval banneton, second time in a round banneton (though that one was a bit too big for the amount of dough).

After proofing I turned on a shooter, slashed and baked at 250 degrees C. 

The Cord of Poverty

If you want to go straight to the video, follow this link 

This loaf has it all. Great dough, great flavor, and; slashing not required! A rope of twisted dough, placed parallel on top of the loaf, magically takes care of that. And it has great visual appeal. The long twisted strand of dough is like an umbilical cord. Where it touches the dough, it folds open. It's almost hard not to have associations with life, birth and fertility when looking at it.

It has been a long time since I have posted anything on The Fresh Loaf.  Having become more deeply entrenched as a professional baker has left me less time to bake at leisure.  And having helped to launch a new restaurant in Washington, DC has entailed too many days of continuous work to allow the time to bake for myself and share the joys and tribulations on this forum. 

Got this idea while watching Pizza Cuz on the Cooking channel. The two cousins visited a shop that sells only focaccia with toppings. It seemed to be a better rendition of Sicilian Pizza, distributed locally--Scranton, PA--and sold in Mom & Pop grocery stores when I was a kid. It was delivered in baking-sheet pans, and, as I recall, a 5-inch square sold for 5-cents. The crumb was like white bread, but chewy. The tomato sauce tasted like...tomatoes, with nothing but salt for seasoning.