Blog posts

More tinkering with mixed starters.  This time, along with the usual rye preferment, I decided to preferment the whole wheat portion of the flour instead of the usual white flour preferment.  It worked out pretty well.  Using two starters must be providing a greater margin for error because no matter how I tinker I always end up with something pretty good. 

Over the past couple weeks, I’ve been on a roll….Well, actually, sandwich fillings have been on a roll literally.  I’ve been making rolls, but that’s not a figure of speech of which I am aware.  I suppose I could say I’ve been roll-playing.  Anyway…enough tropes.

A couple weeks ago, I blogged on my attempt to make a San Francisco-style sourdough bread that  had a crunchy crust, moderate sourness and a nice, complex flavor. (See My San Francisco Sourdough Quest).

My quest  continued this weekend. The formula and method were amended in these ways:

A while ago, I learned how to calibrate my oven. The range goes from +30 to -35. I did this to get better results making pizza.

A couple of days ago it came to my mind that I could also use this to decrease the heat of my oven and use it as a proofer. Look at the different results with my oven as proofing box, at 80F and with some warm water at the bottom!!!!

Here are a couple of shots of the SD Raspberry Pancakes made for breakfast a couple of days ago.  The spring was incredible !!! I used a starter that had been refreshed 3 days before some it wasn't in peak form.  Made the batter the night before and let it sit in the fridge overnight.  Very tasty too.  Another blog on TFL, sorry I can't remember which, inspired me.

I have picking teketeke's (Akikio) brain on making a yeast water starter and baking bread with it.  Akiko is a a generous person and very knowlegable about YW.  Since I have minneolas in the back yard, I started my yeast water with them and apples.  I was successful first time thanks to Akiko.  I built up a levain over 3 days and started searching for a recipe to use it on.  Zolablue's explosive spring Semolina Bread jumped out because the crumb I thought would work very well with the color of the TW.  Here is my formula,  Sorry it is not as

This is in reference to Chef Reinhart's Ciabatta with Biga.  I think what helped me was to re-read the directions time and time again. And to watch different videos. I feel it was successful...thank you Chef.

Croissant Dough with a Sponge

My base recipe for laminated yeasted dough, with a couple of amendments.   A bit of sugar is included, although my own preference remains a croissant without sugar.   And I have adapted the formula to use a sponge where 20% of the total flour becomes pre-fermented.