Blog posts

We talked, we texted, we discussed ideas and recipes... but this week we all baked somewhat differently. Barb made the amazing Tartine bread on the lead in... many times... many loaves... maybe obsessively!! Maybe not, she had a wealth of talent and people standing in line to eat her breads... or sitting and reclining... however it gets them bread they are doing it!!! 

 Absolutely beautiful and holes that have never been seen in

Thanks so much to blueboy2419 for posting the recipe for this French bread.  It looks fantastic.  Just letting it cool down for lunch.  Ironically, blueboy2419 mentioned adding stout to the bread (I didn't) and getting it at the Liverpool Organic Brewery in England, and, while we live in California, my husband is from Liverpool, and we were just there over the holidays visiting with his family.  We go often, so I hope we can visit the brewery.  I saw on their web site that there is a big beer festival when w

As an exercise I created a spreadsheet for Diagram 3, Part II "Rustic Sourdough with Three Flours, a Cracked Wheat Soaker and a Yeasted Preferment.

I have no idea if it will be of any use to anybody, but here is the google doc link if you are interested.

Diagram 3

The only difference is that I used grams instead of kg, though that is easily changed if people find that annoying.

Lately I have been seeing many post on Tangzhong in softening the crumb n giving it a better spring. I decided to have a go my self. I have slightly modified the formulae from our TFLer Janet. 

We are experiencing some pretty hot weather here in the West at the moment but i did find time to bake.

I was impressed with the 36 hr baguettes that were featured recently on TFL, i retrieved my s/d culture from the deep freeze here at work and it proved to be a little sluggish to start with, taking 3 or 4 days  to come out of its christmas holidays slumber.

I did a half size of tx farmers dough and here are the results, still not as good as the others but quite acceptable and very tasty.

 Today I produced 2 lovely loaves of Honey WW sandwich bread since I was taking dinner to some dear friends who have had more than their share of troubles recently. It's always so rewarding to see how fresh, homemade bread is received. As we all sat dragging our bread through the stew gravy in the bottom of our bowls everyone seemed to just relax and enjoy the quiet company of good friends and good food. 

This was an orange chiffon cake and I will call it an upside down cake and explain that later. I used a spring form pan and manually sliced 3 layers using a vanilla fudge spread for one layer and a chocolate fudge for the other. The cake was finished with enrobing chocolate and I thought a sprinkling of ground almond and some sliced almonds would go well, as a ski bum I don't need to watch my weight.

(Note: copied from my actual blog)

This is actually my first attempt at the basic country bread from 'Tartine' (with an exception, see note below). I read and re-read the sections on bulk-fermentation and shaping, until it was etched in my brain, sure not to mess it up. So, of i went...

3rd Test Formula - Basic Country Bread

Final Dough:

900g Strong white bread flour

100g Wholemeal flour

200g Levain

Here is my 3rd attempt at the Oat Porridge Bread.   I reduced the amount of extraction flour (hard red/spelt) to 25%, and omitted the chopped almonds.  At 4.5 hours of bulk, the dough only rose 10% but was well aerated, so I took a gamble, shaped it and proofed for 13 hours at 49 degrees Fahrenheit, and on the counter for 1 hour at 71 degrees.                                                      

January has been a busy month already and there is nothing to indicate that it will slow down anytime soon.  Consequently, I haven't posted much recently but I have been busy with baking.