Blog posts

 Flavorful, complex Boule

 324 g  kefir whey

325 g all purpose flour

150 g whole wheat flour

25 g whole-grain rye

 1/2 tsp Instant yeast

10 g sea salt

 6:00 pm. mix all the ingredients by hand or in a mixer several hours to prove

10 PM, shaping into tight boule, place seam side up in well floured cloth lined basket. Refrigerate within larger plastic bag

 Next morning

Preheat cast iron skillet and cast iron loaf pan (For steaming) in 475 oven

Good evening,

my name is Filippo and I write from a beautiful city called Bergamo,

located in northern Italy.

I worked for a few years as a pizza chef in Italy and six months in

Greece. From one year I found out the bread with sourdough, and seems

that in Italy it is still a recent practice. There are few realities

willing to teach.

My girlfriend and I would like to open a micro bakery near our house

and we are looking for someone to teach a small business.

Produce 1 kg of bread is different to produce 50 kg

Farina Bona is a unique flour produced in Cavigliano, a village in the Swiss canton of Ticino.  Cavigliano sits in the Valle Onsernone that runs east out of Locarno, the lakeside town from which the better known (to bread bakers) Valle Maggia runs north.

I chanced upon a long TFL post Chasing thin, crispy, not thick/tough dough A comment by Mariana regarding a 100% sponge method loaf caught my eye. I think Mariana made it in a bread machine, but the loft was incredible. I've been thinking of making a tin loaf for a while, so this was the perfect opportunity.

It is easy to make one for yourself though using Lucy's variation of Peter Reinhart's whole grain rye method that takes 4 days and makes bread on day 5 with left over starter for storage - without any discard!

Day 1- 30 g of whole grain rye and 25 g of water.  mix cover with plastic wrap and leave for 24 hour

Day 2 add 30 g of WG rye and 25 g of water Mix and let sit for 24 hours covered in plastic

Day 3 - divide in half.  Add 30 g of WG rye and 25 g of water to each half, stir and cover each with plastic

I was inspired by the flour combination and the beautiful loaves that Rich aka rgreenberg2000 made for the 123 community bake.

A friend also reminded me of Kirsten's aka https://www.instagram.com/fullproofbaking/?hl=en method which she uses including lamination of the dough as well really pushing the bulk at lower temps 73Fish with a limited amount of folds.

She also then skips pre-shape and goes straight to final shaping.

I did not have any rye so used Emmer flour instead...

50% Wholemeal Spelt with White Spelt and 50% Greek Yoghurt

Whilst at the IGA store waiting for my script to be filled at the chemist i spotted a tub of greek yoghurt discounted to 99 cents and decided it would be nice to use in a bread. When i got home i worked out a formula for using wholemeal spelt and spelt flour and the yoghurt enough to make a 750g loaf.

w/m spelt 220g
spelt 220g
salt 8.8g
butter 8.8g
yeast dried 8.8g
greek yoghurt 220g
water (but reqd more) 66g

With some simple calculations, you’ll realize that the 123 formula creates dough with a hydration of roughly 71.4%. This is totally fine if you’re working with white dough but not so much for someone like me, who prefers baking with higher percentages of whole grain. That’s why I made a porridge with batter-like consistency to bring the hydration up to 92% :)

Purple & Red Rice Porridge Comte Sourdough

For the past few weeks, I have had quite a few requests to make another olive loaf. So I took my Caramelized Onion with 4 Cheeses recipe and subbed out 3 types of Olives for the onions, feta for the 4 cheese blend and Kamut for the Selkirk wheat. I did adjust quantities on the fly to accommodate the ingredients I had on hand (Might as well use the entire jars of olives and the whole container of feta). ?

Recipe

Makes 3 loaves

500 g unbleached flour

200 g bread flour