Blog posts

Even though I haven't been blogging, I have been baking quite a bit. Other than my weekly loaves, lately it's been mostly non-bread. Like these spicy ginger molasses cookies. The cookies contained grated fresh ginger and dried ground ginger. Other spices in the cookies were green cardamon, black pepper, cloves and cinnamon.  Super spicy and gingery. Not for the faint of heart.

...into the holidays. A practice pie (okay, so I wanted pie) apple-pear with brandy-soaked raisins and cranberries. The vent hole began as a heart shape and the top crust was a bit thin at the edges, so juices leaked through. But the crust is flaky and crisp - 25%WW, and the fruit held its shape and is quite flavorful, so no complaints.

To all of you who read and contribute to this site, thank you for helping us all take our interests and knowledge to a higher level.

Happy Holidays!

Cathy

    Holy Sprouted Wheat Batman!  There is something about sprouted wheat that adds a softness and creaminess to the crumb that is hard to describe unless you try it for yourself.

used bread flour, heritage whole wheat and rye for this loaf.

started with a pre ferment about 16 hours

G 35g 100% starter (mine is rye)

35g water

35g bread flour

final dough

310g bread flour

100g heritage whole wheat

100g dark rye

12g sea salt

1 tsp toasted and ground cumin and coriander seeds

autolyse at least 1 hour

bulk fermentation 2 hours with stretch and fold at intervals of 30 mins

preshape and bench 10min

final shaping and proof in banneton for 45 min to 1 hour

was to have a go at a basic sourdough using formula I read on TFL - 1 part starter, 2 parts water, 3 parts flour with 2% salt.  I wanted a basic white loaf I could slice and freeze.  Made the liquid levain from my firm starter last night and used almost all of it to get 1 loaf and a boule.  This was the wettest dough I have ever tried so I did lots of stretch and folds over the early part of bulk fermentation time then left it much longer to ferment on the kitchen bench at about 25oC.   Am happy with results  as I had wondered how it would ever hold its shape.

After last week’s Cosmic Calamity, Lucy has settled back down to her normal self but had to have a beer to celebrate her notoriety as the center of the universe even if only for one day.  She has an affinity for darker beers and decided that Deschutes Black Butte Porter was perfect, not only for celebrating but for bread making too.

I used to make the buttermilk bread from the Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book as our everyday sandwich bread, but then I discovered an overnight fermentation recipe and the colour, texture, and taste are so much better, I don't think I can ever go back to an all-in-one-day bread recipe.

After mostly making levain breads from Hamelman's bread, I decided to try Ken Forkish's approach which is quite a bit different.  I had made bread using the Dutch oven technique a long time ago when the method was popularized. It seemed like everyone was jumping on the band wagon. A number of books came out with variations on that technique. What I noticed was that for the most part the recipes were white breads with some subtle flavor additives, and I have always favored breads with a fair amount of whole grains.

This was an experimental loaf. As the weather gets cold I am testing time and temperature.

The idea here was to increase the ratio of rye starter to wheat starter to 2:1 - this was mostly to give it a stronger fuller flavor - that worked. I also let this bulk ferment for about 24 hours. The amount of time out of the fridge is the variable since "room temperature" is definitely different than it was a few months ago.

This formula is for one loaf but I continually get enough rise and spring to actually bake two good sized loaves.