Blog posts

SFBI Artisan I day 2

Today's emphasis was on the differences between Short, Intermediate and Intensive mixing. Each of us baked 5 baguettes with each type of mix. The formulas for each batch was slightly different - the shorter the mix, the longer the fermentation, the greater the number of folds, the higher the hydration and the less yeast.

Our lab, aerial view

Over the weekend I made some more baguettes as well as some Pane Toscano. In addition, I began development on a honey white wheat sourdough sandwich bread. More on that later.

French dough made with poolish is a wonderfully extensible and easy to shape. Unfortunately for me this particular batch was a bit on the short side.

 My husband had been diagnosed with hypoglycemia. The worsest thing is that he has been suffering from panic attack  since he pasted out at the work 3 years ago. I was too silly that I hadn't tried to use 100% whole wheat flour on my recipe. ( My old recipe was 54%(Actually 54.5%)whole wheat bread)  And yet he likes 55% whole wheat bread more than than 85% or 100%.

 This loaf turn out to taste really nice with the nutty flavour and texture from soybean & linseed.

The recipe is adapted from Hamelman's multigrain sourdough and Bourke Street Bakery's soy and linseed sourdough. I basically followed Hamelman's method and recipe but replace the grains with soy and linseed to the equal amount.

Wow! There is no way possible to describe today in full, even with photos. I'll try a summary.

ANOTOLIKA [The Beach House]

9 nights of our Summer Holiday in August 2010

We had a leisurely drive up to South San Francisco today for the SFBI Artisan I workshop which starts tomorrow and lasts 5 days. We're staying at one of the hotels nearby - 1.5 miles from SFBI itself.

We drove over to see where it is. SFBI is on a hill with a beautiful view of the hills West of the Bayshore Freeway (US Hwy 101). It's in the heart of the Bay Area biotech enclave. In fact, SFBI and TMB are essentially an island in the Genentech campus, which is huge. Immediately to the East is SF Bay. There's a wonderful walking path that goes for several miles along the bay here.

Here is the second recipe I've made from Amy's Bread, and my first pumpernickel ever! After having been burned by modifying the methods for the 100% spelt bread recipe (mine ended up VERY sour) in the same book and not knowing what to expect from pumpernickel flour I stayed very close to the original recipe. However, when I put together the final dough, it was absolutely nothing like the description! There is some sort of disconnect here and I'm not sure what it is.