Blog posts

For the holidays, I decided to move away from the typical four ingredients and go with somethimg richer.  I remembered that when I was perusing the BBA book, I found a recipe that caught my eye - Portuguese Sweet Bread.  I hope you enjoy some of the pics tha I took along the way.  The bread turned out great, even though I was missing some of the key ingredients, like shortening and lemon and orange extracts.

The traditional holiday meal on California’s North Coast consists of Sourdough Bread, Fresh Dungeness Crab and White Wine.  By family demand, I made some San Francisco Country Sourdough for the Crab feast.  It was the best I’ve ever made. 

Ihe been 6 weeks since we wrapped up the stollen in a cotton tea towel and put it on teh back patio to age gracefully in a tin here:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/30996/not-so-stollen

and here: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/31088/not-so-stollen-thanksgiving-take

Our take on Breadsong’s fabulous Christmas Rose was to make it Green with basil pesto and Red with home made sun dried tomatoes.  We used our combo yeast water, rye sour and Desem sourdough starters with our 30% whole gain multi-grain mix of Kamut, dark rye, spelt and whole wheat.

Sending this to Yeastspotting.

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Today, I had some cheese curds leftover from making a gouda cheese, along with some recently dried dill weed.  It was time to make cottage cheese onion dill bread from The Tassajara Recipe Book.  The recipe makes two light and airy loaves.  We enjoy a slice toasted and buttered at breakfast along with some scrambled eggs.

From a very wet UK, I'm sending out my very best wishes to all of you over the holiday season, and I hope 2013 is a fine one too.

Here's a photo of the Bread and Roses stall last Friday at the Christmas Market.   It was a really good time, but would have been frantically busy had there been even slightly better weather.

All good wishes

Andy

The formula you posted for the potato/ricotta bread was a winner !!  I am so glad that my refridgerator contents contained all that I needed . I made a couple changes . I used leftover scalloped potatoes that contained some bits of ham and onions. I mashed them with some milk to what I hoped was a good consistency. You were right about the dough being goopy :)  Whoa...it was. I had already put in all the water , I am used to working with really wet doughs, but I still thought perhaps this was too wet. I added about 1/2 c more flour as it was working in the KA.

Thought Experiment #2:  What is the difference between a starter and a bread dough?

One question I like to ask new apprentices is, what's the difference between a starter and a bread dough?  Or, for that matter, between a pre-ferment and a bread dough?

I have never received a satisfactory answer, and I think because there isn't one.  Not an answer, a difference.