Blog posts

Decided to try to make "traditional sourdough" style bread using CLAS and CY. Mostly standard formula, 25% whole wheat, 75% hydration: https://fgbc.dk/1oiv

I used a week-old CLAS from the fridge, and I pre-warmed it before mixing, like recommended for wheat doughs. It contained 5% of all flour for the bread, like recommended for 1st grade or high gluten flour. I reduced the yeast from recommended just a touch, since I didn't want to open a new packet, so 2.4g instead of 3 g IDY.

Number 2 son and his family are visiting. This is the first face-to-face family contact we have had in a year and a half. It's so nice. It's also an excuse to bake. Here's a sampling of what I've offered ...

Jewish sour rye and Berliner Landbrot

San Joaquin Sourdough Baguettes and Epis

Wanted to try something enriched with CLAS, and followed Rus Brot's interpretation of a 1940 Russian recipe for schneiken, meaning "snails" aka rolls - originally German in origin, as you might have guessed. Here is the formula with minimal instructions, since the video is only in Russian: https://fgbc.dk/1ofj

I give a lot of bread away to my neighbors and so decided to have a bit of fun and create this packaging...and alter-ego...and fictitious city.  All fake, but the bread is the real deal - 

Boomshanka y'all ! 

Continuing my CLAS experiments, made a whole spelt bread with seeds, following Rus Brot's recipe again, with a large/long pre-ferment, and very quick and warm bulk and final proof. Only uses a tiny amount of yeast (0.15% IDY of total flour). Recipe here. Here is my formula https://fgbc.dk/1ode (I used linseeds in place of sunflower seeds, that's what I had; also wanted to finish the last few grams from the bag of spelt flour, so added just a little more in the final dough).

The 4th is a big family gathering every year for my wife, and all of her siblings come back to town.  One of the first items on the list is getting nisu from one of the local bakeries.  Decided to try my hand at braiding and making my first one.

Followed the recipe in the comments of this thread, but adapted it to two loaves. https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/4168/finnish-nisu-aka-pulla 

This is a version of a bread I previously baked in January. I added some whole wheat in place of some of the AP flour in the original version.

I was very happy with how this one came out. The flavor was nutty with a nice moist open crumb. This was a perfect bread for grilling with some good olive oil brushed on and some melted cheese.

I really like the way the scoring came out as well :).

Sometimes things don’t work as planned, so it is good to have a plan B just in case.  Having a pullman pan lined with parchment or a focaccia tray ready is always a good idea if your dough doesn’t seem to be developing the way it should during bulk.  That is what happened today to this dough, it just seemed much wetter and looser than I recall when I made this recipe a year ago.  I’m pretty sure I didn’t measure incorrectly so I wonder if the flours have just absorbed quite a bit of the moisture from the air lately as it has been humid.