Blog posts

I grew up in a household where bread and butter was served with every meal. Now granted, it rarely was a nice, warm home baked bread. More likely than not it was either Rainbo or Wonder brand sliced white bread from the corner store. Today I still like bread with almost every meal, but I've made great strides in seeing to it that it's a home baked bread.

I've been experimenting with 80% dough lately. I use a no knead process, initially turning the mix every half hour 3 or 4 times. I do an 18 hour cold ferment either as a batch ferment or in a basket after shaping with the stretch and fold method. Though the crumb is nice and open, I haven't been able to get the dough elastic enough to get the  37 oz. loaves  to 'stand up' to my satisfaction.

And my Pastry class continues. Last weekend ,we’ve started the cookies/cakes class with a theory lesson for half the day on cakes, batters, and creaming/foaming techniques and trouble shooting cakes. This particular lesson will be split into 4 classes. Here is a picture of the cookies made by all of the class (Mine and my team mate's are the ones on the cooling rack; they were uneven and somewhat ragged).

Sourdough in action again. 

Even since I received a starter from carl im obsess with it, now I bake everything with sourdough. Its awesome with great taste. I used the recipe from www.norishingjoy.com but I have made a little twist.

1/2 cup sourdough wholewheat starter
3/4 cup Canola Oil
3/4 cup whole wheat flour

3/4 cup AP flour
3/4 cup granuate sugar
1 teaspoons vanilla

1 teaspoon of minced orange zest

Juergan was my inspiration when he mentioned I should try spelt in the starter on the 40/60 loaf. I thought about it and made a biga with 2 feedings using 50g spelt/50 g apple yeast water for a total of 200g, no  commercial yeast .I let it rise all night in the oven with the light on. Wow...it really grew and smelled lovely..faint apples   I subtracted that from the total liquid/flour in the  Norwich formula that I use as a base. I also subbed spelt for 1/2 the rye called for.

This is another post of Pizza night with a new formula. This time with a starter and Commercial Yeast Poolish.

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My Wife's workmates wanted something a little more sweet than savory so Madeleinse it is. 

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Semolina Bread with Toasted Fennel and Sesame Seed topped with Sesame and Chia Seeds

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Yesterday I had a big bunch of starter and two baking plans. One was an artisan loaf, which totally failed, it didn't hold its shape at all, I ended up with a 10 in round disk that had such a crust you could hardly cut it. Today it is bird food out in the back yard.

The second project was the cinnamon rolls, flavored with orange zest, sprinkled with cranberries and walnuts in addition to my regular cinnamon roll fare, frosted with a cream cheese orange glaze, and it's delicious.