Blog posts

I was thinking about grass a few days ago while finishing the last lawn mowing of the season and while not really appreciating my lawn grass as such, was struck by the fact that wild grasses are the archetype for the many grains we use to make our bread.  Many species/strains of wheat and other grains can trace their origins as wild grasses that have been cultivated, modified and preserved over many years as food crops.  So, with that in mind, I baked what I decided to call "Grass Bread", as inspired by the grass roots of our modern grains. 

I just had probably my last bake with a class of students at the college before it closes for good at the end of this year.

This was a dough that they had down in their work books as a basic bread dough but i would have it down as an enriched dough as it had 8% butter and 8% milk powder, for me it would qualify as a vienna dough.

 It was a fresh yeasted dough  and made a nice selection of dinner rolls and a few loaves like this one i bought home.

My DH was asking for a plain sourdough. But it's a little too boring for me. So I made a high hydration loaf and coated it with sesame seeds. 

500g Organic AP flour

262g water (over poured a bit)

150g Levin built from NMNF rye starter and whole wheat flour over 2 days

13g salt

 This morning's PdC made in a hurry; but good.

About 6am I ground 25 g rye and 175 g of red winter wheat as fine as possible, then added 400 ml of water, a tsp of instant yeast, and 100 g of very good starter, stirring well. I put a shower cap on it and let it sit at 85F for a couple of hours.

Then, I used a wooden spoon to stir in 400 grams of GM bread flour making a rough dough, put the  shower cap back  on it, and put it back its proof box for half an hour. 

I came home to see that my levain was doing quite well in my Doraemon bowl! The CO2 got trapped by the cling wrap. Interesting.

A friend has a walnut tree and gave me some walnuts...So when I looked at my Tartine 1 book again there was a basic recipe similar to my usual 1:4:5 with 100g WW and the rest strong white flour and 100g leaven...

So I followed the advice and toasted the walnuts in the oven which gave them an amazing flavour and surprised I had any left to bake with...

Hello friends! 

It's been a (long) while since I posted, not for a lack of baking though. Just been dealing with all sorts of chaos. 

I've been baking and re baking this seeded loaf trying new techniques and methods and it's been fun to see the different results. The formula hasn't changed much from my last post, except I've changed to a 100% hydration levain. I don't know if there's any real science behind it but I seem to get nicer results with a 100% levain as opposed to my usual 80% hydration. 

While looking through the kitchen pantry for inspiration, I came across a bag of Wild Blend Rice made by Lundberg. I normally use this rice for a wonderful Chicken & Wild Rice Soup made in the Crockpot but I had bought too much and this bag was sitting there saying to me: “You have been lusting after Ian’s Rice breads for some time, so here I am!”. Who am I to argue with a bag of rice? Ha ha!

I have Peter Reinhart’s Artisan Breads Every Day and  between Ian’s posts and this book, I managed to put this one together. 

Recipe

Found some assorted grains tucked back in a cabinet. Sprouted them and made up a little 1-2-3 loaf.

I often forget how much wonderful flavor that can add.  kamut, spelt, barley, buckwheat groats, triticale berries, oats