Blog posts

We are always on the lookout for a good hamburger bun recipe for our monthly hamburger feast.   We saw a post by KMIAA about some buns they baked from here http://www.food.com/recipe/japanese-tangzhong-milk-bread-water-roux-493704

That we thought looked perfect.

Totally from scratch loaves! There was no recipe, I used what I had on hand, and went by taste, smell, feel and 30 years of home baking experience to come up with something totally unique.

There's a little yeast, a lot of sourdough starter. I used oat, whole wheat and all purpose flours. Added a little honey and a little turbinado sugar. Mixed in some unsalted nuts and seeds (walnuts, almonds, cashews, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, all unsalted). A touch of walnut and sesame oils.

The above breads were made with the same recipe. As I have written before, I was looking for a good sandwich loaf.  The trouble with the round bread is that it is a pain to cut into sandwich size pieces.  The trouble with baking a "white bread" that I have had is that it is so soft that it is a pain to cut into slices without the bread crumbling.

So the first loaf was pretty stiff. Upon reviewing the recipe I noticed that the water called for can range between 12 and 14 ozs, therefore the hydration of the main dough can vary between 59% and 70% ... of course the starter can affect the overall hydration and my starter is hydrated at 50% while Reinhart calls for 100% hydration in this recipe.

Oops.

Nonetheless the first batch was good. As I mentioned I gave a loaf to a friend who enjoyed it, and my kids housed the other loaf. A neighbor came over on Saturday afternoon and I gave him a piece and he also enjoyed it.

After reading Khalid post on Miche, it really itches me to bake on myself. I didnt use SFBI formula, instead I followed Jeffrey Hamelman -  multi-flour miche to create this beautiful monster.

This is the second time I've baked a high percentage rye bread. The first was Hamelman's Volkornbrot; I wasn't elated with the result. ( http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/14991/christmas-baking-blisters ).  That was four years ago.

Lately--happy with my progress with sourdoughs, baguettes, challah and deli rye, and motivated by a number of other TFL'er's seemingly annual flurry of activity with Borodinsky rye Ioaves I thought I give it a go.

This is the loaf along with two slices ready to eat.  The recipe I used makes 3 loaves. 

Made some Rye bread, and thought I would show you how these came out.  Used a different recipe for this bread than I normally use.  Will Post another photo of the loaf and two slices.

These were 5 oz.  A bit big for burgers but tasty.  Used the Tangzhong method except I didn't add any sugar at all or any milk powder.