Blog posts

The Super Bowl

Profile picture for user dabrownman

Being a twin and the 2nd one born, my twin has always said I was a real 'Born Loser'.  But this year's birthday is a very special one because my birthday is on 02-02-2020 .....the same day as the Super Bowl.  It seems fitting that my Chiefs are favored to win by 2 by the bookies.  But they are oh so wrong!  I think the Chiefs will win by 20.  So I'm taking the 200 to 1 odds that they will do so and putting 20 bucks on it.  I'm getting ready to celebrate their huge 20 point win by making pizza in the toaster oven using home made tortillas.......

Ciabatta with biga

I have never baked a ciabatta in all the years of baking. I wanted to take some nice bread to friends for late afternoon drinks that would pair nicely with cheese and selected wines. My usual bake for these events is baguettes with a poolish, but I wanted to try something. I went with Hamelman's ciabatta with biga which is a 73% hydration loaf.

The result was better than I was expecting, The crumb is not as open as some prefer, but I don't like the holes so large that the toppings fall through. I may experiment with upping the hydration a few points to test my nerve.

Cheers,

Bigger Bread - 3 lb loaf

Toast

Some people paint sunflowers, I bake bread- until get good at it.  I decided that in order to really understand Pain de Campagne, I had to bake them actual size. 

This loaf is built from a hundred grams of starter, 600 grams water, 1,000 g bread flour, and 20 g salt.

Big Bread - white

Toast

I bought white bread flour for the Thanksgiving party and it is time to use it up.

This is about a 2-pound sourdough loaf baked from Graincraft’s Morbread. It is a flour that I like for white bread.

I measured out 400 gr water, 600 grams of flour, and 12 gram of salt.

A couple of ounces of my starter was mixed with a similar volume of the water, and enough flour mixed in to make a very soft dough, which was left to sit (covered) on the counter for a few hours until it had more than doubled in volume and looked foamy.  

Want lighter more airy crumb - Problem with second Proof

Toast

Hi!

This is my first Post and I'm hoping I can find some help here.

I have been making no-knead breads using bread flower have also used bread flower with 25% whole wheat & 10% Rye. I have used quick acting, instant, & sourdough on different loaves. I have used the 1/4 to 1/2 tsp yeast with cool water & 8-24hr, 72deg 1st proofing as well as the 1 1/4 to 2 tsp yeast with warm water & 1 to 3 hr, 85deg 1st proofing. Everything through this step seems OK, My dough has lots of bubbles and has more than doubled in volume

Weekly Bake 01/27/20

Profile picture for user Crusty Loafer

Made a few adjustments.  Last bake was good,  but the crumb was waxy and still a little moist. Flavor was still very good though.  I lowered my hydration from 70 to 65 %. Plus I added the salt with the flour and blended all dry ingredients before adding my water and leaving.

Cinnamon Rolls

Toast

My wife was craving cinnamon rolls Sunday morning, so I figured I'd give them a shot. I used the recipe in The Baker's Apprentice, with the exception that I omitted the lemon zest.

Overall, I liked working with this enriched dough. The addition of the egg and sugar made it a bit different than my usual bread dough, but it ended up with a very nice consistency.