Blog posts

As any of my loyal dear readers and followers know, I have been in a wonderful rut of baking the Tartine Basic Country Loaf.  The vast majority of my loaves have been, dare I say, excellent.

My experiments continued this morning, as I baked another dough I had frozen very recently.  This was a variation of Khalid's recipe that I have made a couple of times.  I really enjoy this bread as it has lots of different grains in the soaker, and it is ready to go so quickly.  I defrosted the loaf yesterday in the fridge and took it out at 6 a.m.

Five years ago (April 25) I discovered The Fresh Loaf, and started this journey. Prior to then I’d frequently baked yeasted breads, and a modest spectrum of other baked goods. I’d bought a bread-maker—A Zo—and soon after quit, for the most part, buying supermarket bread. I continued to purchase loaves from local bakers, Deli Rye most frequently; and, while still working, loaded up with airport sourdough every time I passed through San Francisco.

I was content—well, almost content.

I've baked a few more loaves recently. I'm still having a bit of trouble deciding when they're properly proofed. All of these are from Hamelman's 'Bread'. I used a Dutch Oven for all the boules.

My previous bake was a straight dough using 00 Caputo flour and a little Kamut flour.  For this bake I wanted to make a sourdough version and also add some rye and bread flour.

I am starting to like the characteristics of combining the 00 style flour with other flours a lot.  It helps create a lighter crumb which sometimes is a nice change of pace.

The final bread came out great with a nice dark crust and open and light crumb.  The Kamut adds a nice nutty flavor along with a yellow complexion to the dough.

Some of you may remember the new flour I picked up from the local mill last month, and didn't have the chance to try it in some bread; I’m now glad I did. Since the flour is French style, I decided to use it to make a Miche.  

RECIPE:

INSTRUCTIONS

30 weeks since I started this now tradition. I've had this idea on my mind a while.  I've eaten this bread at a few bakeries and they vary from sweet levain style to slightly enriched pan breads.  I thought I'd start with a light rye sour as the base.  The end results are pretty tasty.  The 30 percent of Whole Rye brings a great sweetness to the loaf but since 22% is prefermented for 15 hours it also brings a lovely sour flavor to the loaf.  The toasted sunflower pairs as it does in Volkornbrots.

-recreating the Sourdough Red Wine Bread by Yuko

Finally decided to take the plunge and used the cherished red wine at home for this recipe and am glad, I was well rewarded! the taste and flavour is amazing, perfect for me (just like Yuko, a big fan of both wine and bread.) started off on Friday evening and had the bread baked in time for brunch on Sunday. (12 hour autolyse, 6 hour bulk ferment, 18 hour retard)

 A few days ago my wife decided to make her delicious meat sauce and I volunteered to make a bread to go with it.  I didn't have time to create a starter so I made a straight dough based on the German Style rolls I have made before which I posted about here.

I of course had to change it up a little since that's kind of what I like to do.  I added some freshly ground whole Kamut flour and used honey instead of sugar.

The Chinese steamed bun is the bread of my childhood. The dough can be used for many different applications. The most well known would be char siu bao (steamed BBQ pork bun). The dough can also be filled with other savory things like chicken or vegetables. There are sweet bean paste and custard filled ones too. My mom likes to roll up a piece of Chinese sausage (lop cheong) to make a Chinese version of 'pig-in-a-blanket'. And they can be plain when meant to be served with Peking duck or pork belly.