Blog posts

Expanding on the bread I baked last week, the seeded sourdough loaf, I increased the total hydration to about 73-75%.

This time only sunflower seeds inside the bread, and topped with sesame. Baked at a slightly higher temperature. Could have done with a bit more final proofing, cause the bread had quite some oven spring. 

master baker at work even if you have seen it before.  The picture is a take on David Snyder's Pugliesi Caprioccio (sp?)and the video is Chad Robertson not baking with a DO :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5kKeKSfyOE

Happy baking

We haven’t made English Muffins for a while and wanted to up the whole grains and use YW for the leaven.   We used the 25% sifted out portion of our whole grain milling to feed the YW levain so this has the effect of being 4 times that amount being whole grain for calculations.  Thee grains milled were rye, whole wheat, spelt, farro and Kamut.

So at first I intended to use some local rye to make a Ryeguette.  A few years back in San Fran I believe at the main La Boulangerie I had a light rye baguette with pistachios that I just loved.  I've been meaning to create a rye baguette since and its been a long time coming.  Well I ran out of Central Millings Baker's Craft which I was going to blend 70/30 with the local rye.  I had to go buy more flour (I usually buy from my work at good prices/bakers perk)  I noticed King Arthur's whole white hard wheat and had to go with that.

I made a couple of adjustments with this bake.  For the batard, I reduced the proofing time to 35 minutes and voila, the lame worked like it was supposed to and for the first time I have the grigne I have been trying for.

I reduced proofing time on the boule to 50 minutes and once again got a clean score with the lame.  The boule contains 10% whole wheat, 15% organic rye which were autolysed in an equal weight of water overnight, oil and honey.  I baked the boule in a hot DO as I wanted to try and get it right today after a poor effort yesterday.

I have wanted to make a potato pizza ever since I first saw a picture of one in Daniel Leader's Local Breads. I'm good at delaying gratification. So, several years later, here I am with balls of the best pizza dough I have ever made and no plans for dinner. I made potato pizza. It did not disappoint.

Since reading Leader's recipe, I also acquired Maggie Glezer's Artisan Breads, which also has a recipe for potato pizza. The pizza dough recipes are different, but the potato topping ingredients are essentially identical. 

   This bread was inspired by my friend and fellow TFL member, Khalid.  His beautiful bread was a 100% whole wheat version using yeast while for my version I chose to convert the recipe to sourdough and used three different whole grain flours instead of one.

I decided to use my trusty Krups coffee grinder to make fresh ground flour for the entire recipe and I was quite happy with the results.

I used a 2 step build for the starter mixing Einkorn Ancient Whole Wheat with a Hard White Whole Wheat.

Following the month of Ramadan, where bread consumption was slow paced,  it was finally Eid celebration this past weekend here in Dubai. With not much time to be around the kitchen, i managed to squeeze a swift afternoon bake from the book: Bread by jeffery Hamelman.