Blog posts

I made a boule today that was one of my better efforts. It tasted very good, but I think I can go wetter. I'm also looking for more of a blistery crust- one that crackles a bit more.

I'm determined to make the Whole Wheat recipe in the Bread Baker's Apprentice work. This will be my 3rd try. Got started last night. I put together the soaker with stone ground rye flour. It was 4.25oz flour to 6oz water. Covered, left on the counter. Then I put together the poolish. I used KA whole wheat flour. 6.75oz flour, and 6oz water. The directions say to "mix the flour and yeast, and add the water until it forms a thick paste. Stir only enough to hydrate the flour." First problem: 6oz of water was not even enough to pick up all the flour.

Just a few days ago, i decided to try Pete Reinhart's Pane Siciliano. It's been a long time since i've wanted to try this.. Wished i'd shape it better though. But the semolina adds something nice to it :)! Anybody tried Pane di Altamura before? Is it 100% durum flour bread?

It's still easy to cut yourself while slicing bread. Yesterday, when halving one of my Pane a l'Ancienne from TBBA, I put my hand on top of the loaf, and sliced along the side, like I always do. It removes the possibility of getting the knife in the palm of my hand. Instead, the knife skipped on the (beautiful) crust and right into the pad of my middle finger. I managed to keep the blood off the bread! :) And boy, was there a lot of blood. I served it at a friend's party, and it was the talk of the room. Nothing trumps fresh bread! -Joe

I started out on Saturday morning creating a fresh starter using 75% water to flour. I moved on to a lunch loaf and a couple of baguettes.

Today is Saturday, a bread baking day: I've made a batch of Low Fat Bran Muffins with apples, raisins, oat bran and All Bran cereal and later today I will be making a whole wheat recipe as a tester for author, Peter Reinhart. Perhaps I will start Floyd's Pain Sur Poolish later today and finish it up tomorrow. So many breads....so little time. Recently I received a copy of Elizabeth David's English Bread and Yeast Cookery. This is a book that I have wanted for a long time, but it may now be out of print.

Just to update my blog, I recently made 2 kinds of breads. First was a barley stout bread (malt syrup, rye, wheat, barley grains and ...Stout! :) ). Nice aroma with a slightly taste.

I've been gobbling up The Handmade Loaf. Great book. A pity it is so hard to find in the states. I'm too tired to post any recipes or articles tonight, though I will again soon. I'm long overdue. For now, a roll call of things I baked this weekend: Cinnamon Buns - an amalgam of recipes. Flax Seed Bread - from Dan Lepard's book. He calls it Linseed Wheat Bread, I believe. So good I made a second batch.

In the summer I live in the Chicago area but I spend seven months of the year in Fort Myers, FL. Down here I greatly miss the great Asiago bread made by Panera (formerly St Louis bread company.) Nobody makes it in this area, so I thought I would give it a try. I was sort of on my own, because I couldn't find a recipe. I chopped up 2 1/2 oz. of the cheese in a mini blender. I used three cups of flour and followed exactly Floyd's lesson number five for making french bread. I used 1/2 tsp. of dry yeast (bulk from Costco which I keep in the freezer) in the starter and 1/2 tsp.

So last night I was thinking to myself, "I'd like to make some sourdough this weekend. Tomorrow morning I'll take out some of my ripe chef and make a starter with it. It can activate while I'm at work." This morning, I went into the fridge, grabbed my tub of chef. Grabbed the scale and a spatula, took out the stone ground rye. Then I walked over to the garbage can and dumped half of the chef. Then I stared at the chef I had just discarded. *sigh* Stupid auto-pilot. -Joe