Blog posts

Very slowly trying to make progress on baguettes.

Besides the excellent advice of alfanso, I have found Hamelman's video on baguette shaping helpful. Practicing these has made me a lot more aware of the benefits of a good preshape.

I used my posted Classic Sourdough recipe and added two large chopped jalapeños and 200 grams of cubed extra sharp Tillamook cheddar - made two nice big yummy loaves. 

This bread was a challenge! My flour felt thirsty at the beginning, so I think the hydration was bumped up to about 83% and easily the highest hydration, mostly white flour bread I've worked with. Bulk fermentation was much quicker than usual and I overproofed it by a bit. Even with a generous dusting of rice flour, it still stuck to the banneton quite a bit. 

Despite all of those challenges, I'm really happy with the taste of this bread. I'm going back to basics for the next bake, so I can get more practice at a hydration level I'm more comfortable with. 

Cheers!

Today I tried Maurizio's take on the Tartine recipe today, using bolted Warthog Flour as the whole wheat and Barton Springs 00 for the remainder.  I let it proof at room temperature and then baked.  I definitely got a denser loaf than I was expecting, with the larger air pockets accumulating near the top.  I was a bit disappointed with the flatter loaf, and am not sure if it's due to the mix of flours or my shaping--I'm always a bit concerned that I don't get the ball formed tight enough

Gyro sandwich on Ligurian focaccia

There has been a whole lot of therapeutic baking and therapeutic bread consumption during this quarantine.  Here are a couple of them...

 Pepperoni, artichoke, roasted red pepper, and olive pizza

 Challah topped with poppy seeds

Hi everyone, 

I need some help with my starter. I started it on the 29/04 so it's only a few days old. It is my first ever try, I didn't have distilled water and I'm not even sure if the flour I'm using is unbleached. I used the recommended mixture by Joshua Weissman on YouTube for the first mix and a few of the first feedings, this was:

Day 1: 100g wholemeal flour (I didn't have rye) and 150g lukewarm water

I then fed it every 24hrs 

I like "hard core" sourdough - I often make big loaves of 100% whole wheat entirely leavened by sourdough. 

However, there has been a big promotion of sourdough in the mainstream media because of a perceived shortage of baker's yeast.  This is silly. Sourdough should be baked for its virtues.  And, yeast breads should be baked for their virtues.

I baked this bread a second time and adjusted what I was doing based on some comments and suggestions I received here and elsewhere.  Because the sweet potato should already be adding sugars to the dough I skipped the diastatic malt.  I also did bulk fermentation at a slightly lower temperature because I thought the last bake could have been a bit overproofed.  I also baked the bread differently based on an idea that Kirsten of FullProofBaking posted.  On the lowest rack I placed a roasting pan with rack and then baked the bread in my Dutch oven on this rack.

This is my first venture into baking with Kamut in a while. In the past, I have found this flour challenging, as the gluten needs a lot of time to hydrate, and once hydrated it's a bit weak and very extensible. I adapted this recipe from AnnieT's Semolina Bread recipe here: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/20044/semolina-bread#comment-138273

I am delighted with this bread: it has a very thin, very crisp, delicate crust, a moist, tender interior, and a nice clean gentle wheat flavor.

Made more bread using my starter from Tin Shack Bakery in Pahoa -- this is Jeffrey Hamelman's Whole Wheat with pâte fermentée.