Blog posts

Ciabatta with biga

I have never baked a ciabatta in all the years of baking. I wanted to take some nice bread to friends for late afternoon drinks that would pair nicely with cheese and selected wines. My usual bake for these events is baguettes with a poolish, but I wanted to try something. I went with Hamelman's ciabatta with biga which is a 73% hydration loaf.

The result was better than I was expecting, The crumb is not as open as some prefer, but I don't like the holes so large that the toppings fall through. I may experiment with upping the hydration a few points to test my nerve.

Cheers,

Bigger Bread - 3 lb loaf

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Some people paint sunflowers, I bake bread- until get good at it.  I decided that in order to really understand Pain de Campagne, I had to bake them actual size. 

This loaf is built from a hundred grams of starter, 600 grams water, 1,000 g bread flour, and 20 g salt.

Big Bread - white

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I bought white bread flour for the Thanksgiving party and it is time to use it up.

This is about a 2-pound sourdough loaf baked from Graincraft’s Morbread. It is a flour that I like for white bread.

I measured out 400 gr water, 600 grams of flour, and 12 gram of salt.

A couple of ounces of my starter was mixed with a similar volume of the water, and enough flour mixed in to make a very soft dough, which was left to sit (covered) on the counter for a few hours until it had more than doubled in volume and looked foamy.  

Want lighter more airy crumb - Problem with second Proof

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Hi!

This is my first Post and I'm hoping I can find some help here.

I have been making no-knead breads using bread flower have also used bread flower with 25% whole wheat & 10% Rye. I have used quick acting, instant, & sourdough on different loaves. I have used the 1/4 to 1/2 tsp yeast with cool water & 8-24hr, 72deg 1st proofing as well as the 1 1/4 to 2 tsp yeast with warm water & 1 to 3 hr, 85deg 1st proofing. Everything through this step seems OK, My dough has lots of bubbles and has more than doubled in volume

Weekly Bake 01/27/20

Profile picture for user Crusty Loafer

Made a few adjustments.  Last bake was good,  but the crumb was waxy and still a little moist. Flavor was still very good though.  I lowered my hydration from 70 to 65 %. Plus I added the salt with the flour and blended all dry ingredients before adding my water and leaving.

Cinnamon Rolls

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My wife was craving cinnamon rolls Sunday morning, so I figured I'd give them a shot. I used the recipe in The Baker's Apprentice, with the exception that I omitted the lemon zest.

Overall, I liked working with this enriched dough. The addition of the egg and sugar made it a bit different than my usual bread dough, but it ended up with a very nice consistency. 

Service Bread

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I am new to bread baking (about 9 months) and am glad to find a community of bakers, amateur and professional, that truly enjoy sharing their stories. I love the discussions about successful and not so successful baking adventures. I’ve quickly learned that there is no such thing as a bad loaf of bread if it has some of the baker’s heart and soul in it.