Blog posts

I'm getting back into baking after a busy summer.

I made this tonight and continue to be a fan of Sara Owens' recipes. Everything I've made from her books I've really enjoyed. This cake has only 30 grams of brown sugar and only uses whole wheat flour. It has five ripe bananas in it - which are placed in the oven with the brown sugar and a bit of rum to roast for 15 minutes before you make the batter. It uses ripe starter but I don't even think it's necessary given baking powder and soda powder are used in the recipe.

I baked Maurizio’s formula for this bread which I share below copied from his website for those interested in trying this bake.  At the end I’ll post what I will do next time I bake this based on the final results.

This tangzhong pan bread is a direct bake, meaning it’s baked the same day you mix (except for the levain, which is created the night before).

I wasn’t planning on making such a large loaf, but it turned out to be just over 1 kg, I guess that doesn’t qualify it as being a miche, I’ll call it a mini miche ?. It was with this bake that I noticed how extremely sluggish my starter had become, it’s now in starter rehab on a diet of whole rye and bubbling along quite nicely.

Nov. 27, 2020.

The goal of this bake is to use no pre-milled flour, just soaked whole berries that have been blended in a Vitamix blender.  Add-ins are then used to get the hydration right.

This time I weighed most things. I forgot to weigh the approximately 1 tbsp starter. Guessing it to be 19.5 grams.

I started with 225 g of whole berry hard white spring wheat, Prairie Gold, and soaked it in what looked like enough water for 17 hours. I exchanged the soak water during this period.

I bought some emmer flour a couple of months just because I saw it and though "Huh never heard of emmer, I'll give it a go" - and then never tried it (except using in banana bread once). So I finally decided to try it. I recently got the book "Sourdough" by Lugg & Fjeld, and while it's not very advanced, I just followed their simple procedure and formula for 40% emmer sourdough (except added some slap&folds in the beginning until medium development, instead of simply relying on stretch&folds during bulk).

Nov. 25, 2020.

2nd bake of the day. Started the dough in the morning.  Again, not much measuring, just 3/4 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp instant dry yeast, which turned out to be too much.

Soaked some whole berry hard white winter spring wheat (Prairie Gold) for 18 hours. Around 9 am ran it through the blender with enough water to make a smooth paste. Emptied the paste into a mixing bowl. Had to use more water to get the remnants of the paste out of the blender container.

Nov. 25, 2020.

A variation on the previous bake.  Sourdough starter, Deep brand semolina (gritty, not flour), whole  not-soaked chia. 

New to this: added whole not soaked not toasted yellow millet, some ground roasted malted wheat (Briess Midnight wheat malt, non-diastatic https://shop.greatfermentations.com/product/briess-midnight-wheat-malt/specialty-grains ), and some Gold Medal bread flour.

Another great baking day. The crust was crunchy, crisp, and super flavorful. Too many good bakes in a row, I am due for a disaster :-)

We were having a friend over and decided we wanted to make pizza. We are making pizza at least twice a month now, but usually we throw the pizza together at the last minute, which enables a tasty pizza but just not as good as one where the dough is started the day before.

It's been a while since I've made this ciabatta that is based on Reinhart's Poolish Ciabata recipe in The Baker's Apprentice.  Happy to see that it's as reliable as ever for me.  This is based off of Reinhart's Poolish Ciabatta.  modifications include addition of oil and process changes.

Poolish
320g bread flour
340g room @70F  (or cooler if in warm climate)
pinch of Dry Instance Yeast (I literally, use two fingers to pinch some yeast for this. it doesnt register on my scale)

Nov. 23, 2020.

No measuring on this except for 3/8 tsp salt.

Starter, spring water, "Deep" brand Pani-puri semolina flour (gritty, not true flour, but fine grit) UPC 0-11433-11281-9, from Patel Brothers (same package as this: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Deep-Semolina-Pani-Puri-2-Lb/388456304 ),  whole chia seed.  The chia was not soaked prior to adding, and it was incorporated -- not used as a coating.