Blog posts

When making Pan D'oro recently I realized...it being winter in the North East and my house hovering around 62-65*(by choice)I had to come up with a better way of keeping a constant temperature for my sweet starter. I could always fall back on the old pot holder trick (3 folded pot holders=76*) in the stove door with the light on. It works in a pinch but, I always run into this problem of proofing temperature. In the summer it is too hot (I can't bake or i have to use ice water baths) and in the winter it is too cold.

Whilst dividing my sour dough culture the other evening a sudden urge to take advantage of the cooler weather (36 deg it has been over 40) and bake came over me. I decided to make a small dough and was thinking of making some bread sticks so added a goodly amount of olive oil to the mix.

Any way as the stretch and folds were done and the time wore on i decided to change to a loaf instead so the dough was shaped and later put into the fridge as i went to bed.

I have been pretty busy since the Holidays, packing up my house to rent, in anticipation of going on an extended adventure to France in the very near future...but that doesn't mean I don't have time to make bread! I always like to have some bread in the house and these day I making experimenting with Miche, Pointe-a-Calliere ala Shiao Ping. It is funny that the three times I have tried this recipe, the process has been less than text book....but in the end were very tasty!

I wanted to do this at the end of 2009 - my way of saying thanks to everyone here who blogged so enthusiastically, sharing their knowhow.  But client work got in the way, so I managed to complete it only today.

Well, it's been quite a rainy week here in Arizona. Their predicting up to 4 inches of rain here in the desert, even more in the higher country with up to 4 feet of snow up in the higher mountains! Winds up to 60mph this evening! It's been a wild couple of days with a big storm the night before last, rain all day today and so much more yet to come. We just pulled up the awning on the camper to keep it from blowing away!

I took the day off from work today with the stated purpose of looking for a car for my wife.  The company has provided me with a leased vehicle but that leaves my wife stuck at the house most days.  With a 45-60 minute commute in each direction, it isn't practical for her to take me to work and then use the car for the rest of the day.

Thanks for the reminder - I finally remembered to go to the hardware store to buy lava rocks. I asked for the ones for barbecues and they produced a fancy box of expensive and large rocks. I had the idea that the lava rocks would be small so I asked for the ones used in landscaping and found a bag for $4.95 + tax. Now I am wondering - did I get the correct ones? I had been thinking of "scrumping" some from the empty house next door but they were pretty grungy.

So I think I finally figured out how this thing works... well, well enough to put up some pictures and some text around them-- this is how my 66% hydration (3 1/3 cups of bread flour and 2 1/3 cups of water?) came out.

The fork is to show how runny the dough-batter is.  I kneaded for about an hour-- though i could have stopped after 45 minutes, and I think this is what I ended up with (I took the pictures a while ago so I'm not really sure)