Blog posts

(a bit of repost of my introduction on the forum, but wanted to save this bread on the blog as well)

Bought Tartine recently and in an effort to get my basics down I figured I'd drop all the sprouted grains, seeds and nuts for a while and go all basic.

I'm still baking with the Italian flour we got from Mulino Sobrino a couple of months ago. When heading back to Italy end of April I'm thinking I should get myself another batch for the coming months after we've wrapped up in our mountain refuge.

This bread is a riff on Josey Baker's "Dark Mountain Rye" - I omit some of the seeds he uses (sesame), and incorporated lots of sprouted rye in its place. It is incredibly popular at the Cafe I bake for. Shoutout to JB for the inspiration and letting me hang out and get my hands on the dough while I was in San Francisco.

Keep in mind that that formula below is for 2 9x4.5" loaves.

Over my last two days off I made this really big Oatmeal Miche. Its subtle and earthy and maybe a little too big but it will last all week until I have time to make another so I'm pleased.

Here's how I made it

Levain build one 

• 20g rye chef
• 50g fresh ground hard red
• 20g water

Levain build two

First, I can mis remember the amount of flour I'm measuring and end up at 72% hydration instead of 70%.

Then I can set the levain/flour/water to pseudo autolyse for 30 minutes, get an urgent call and come back to it 1.5 hours later.

Then I can start to work the dough, remarking how much slacker it was than last time and realize, after 15 minutes of slap and folds appearing to accomplish nothing, that I forgot the salt.

Month number two, a French classic sourdough - less exciting than I would have expected, but difficult enough to keep me interested. 

Full recipe and thoughts on my blog here

Hi Everyone,

First post from a long time lurker. This site has been such a wonderful resource for years and I thought that I should finally contribute something to the community.

A puff paste latticed blueberry tart.

1/1/2015 - New Years Eve Pizza

1/2/2015 - 50 % Whole Grain Sprouted 8 Grain SD/YW with Japanese Black Rice & Seeds

1/9/2015 - 50 Percent Whole Sprouted 16 Grain SD with Lake Havasu Desert Magic IPA

Hello everyone:  I have been off-the-grid for some time while I was traveling, as we don't have the best internet access when we are in the UK.  I will have to catch up on everyone's bread posts while I was away.

In keeping with Lucy’s recent bread theme of ‘all things sprouted’, we continued with another variation of a multigrain bread  with sprouted  spelt, rye and WW.  The sprouted grains were 25% of the mix this time but there were other changes too – aren’t there always?

The autolyse with the scald

I promised Varda that I would practice brioche a tète (just doing my bit to make sure the terrorists lose…) and my word is my bond. Sometimes it takes years to get your money but that’s how bonds are.

Anyway, my last batch was pretty enough to do a write up and take some pictures (still not my thing).

Since I can’t both shape and take a picture, you should refer to Varda’s blog (someday I'll figure out how to paste a link..) on the topic of brioche to see photos of me shaping. The basics don’t change, but there are things the pictures don’t show. And so, a list: