Blog posts

beginner's guide to creating and maintaining sourdough starter

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There's quite a few good tutorials on this on TFL, but tons of lousy ones online, but I thought I would add my own. Mine is a bit different than others in that it focuses on maintaining warm temps throughout the starter creation process. I believe this is key to establishing good yeast and bacterial multiplication and a healthy starter ecosystem. It also focuses on just using flour, water, time and temperature to build a starter. No sugar, potatoes, honey, (heaven forbid) commercial yeast, other fancy stuff.

sourdough pasta...

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In my other post I showed the lasagna that I made from sourdough pasta. My husband is the pasta maker and I turn it into dinner...so it is a joint effort. It makes the most remarkably tender and flavorful pasta. I use what ever white starter I have  . Mine is usually at 100% hydration. One very nice thing about the SD pasta is its keeping quality in the fridge after you let it dry on the counter. It will last easily for a week if you wrap it well. We make extra and then dry on the counter on cloth towels and then store in fridge to be eaten with various toppings.

Pizza Bliss

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I like pizza quite a lot, but my wife loves it. She told me last night that Pizza is the one food she can “over-eat.” I could not start to list the foods I will predictably over-eat given the opportunity, but my wife has this super-human self-control. So this confession tells you that pizza is really special to her.

I've made some pretty good pizze and some not so good. Last night I made the best pizza I've ever made by a long shot. In fact, I do believe it was the best pizza crust I've ever eaten.

Hanne Risgaard's Danish Spelt Rye

Hello everyone,

It’s been a summer of so much sun here in the Pacific Northwest – have tried to capture the season with some pictures –  flowers, light and beautiful sunshine.

      

the center of this flower seemed like the sun's rays...


Farmer's Market Week 12 Sesame Levain Revisited (from week 3)

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So last week the cool guy who trades me goat cheese requested the sesame levain I made on week three.  I was hesitant as I didn't intend to go back and replicate or improve any recipes but I reconsidered quickly and thought it would be nice to fulfill a request.  I had to make a few changes though.  I cut the lemon idea entirely as I dont' want to find out how much zest I'd need to actually taste it and the loaf was so good when I couldn't taste it.  Secondly I doubled the levain and reduced the final dough ingredients to keep the formula the same.

Today's SD bake, a batard and a boule

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I used a small amount of organic rye flour, perhaps 10% in my white bread flour starter and that seemed to kick things up a bit.I have reduced the proofing time to 40 minutes on the batard and while a little easier to score, my lame work still needs work.  Next bake I will try a 35 minute proof for the batard/ baguette.