Blog posts

I decided to use up the last of my surplus eggnog and try to improve over the recipe in my previous post.

Here's the recipe I used:

Ingredients

for the dough...

450 grams all purpose flour

450 grams eggnog (Southern Comfort brand)

1.5 teaspoons instant yeast

1.5 teaspoons salt

100 grams raisins

for the icing...

1 cup powdered sugar

2 tablespoons orange juice

0.5 teaspoons dried lemon peel

Procedure

I first warmed the eggnog to around room temperature.

The dough is from here. But I only had white four so... wasn´t really country dough. Made the sauce myself which turned out pretty good. Got the sauce recipe from here. I made a nasty mistake with the dough though. Lets just say the outside of the pie crust ended up much thicker then the middle. Live and learn I suppose.

Gluten is the name for one of the two main structural components in any wheat dough or batter; the other being starch, something much more important in rye doughs.

It is a protein based material made from the bonding of two structural proteins in the wheat kernel, that I'll call G1 and G2.

In the presence of water G1 and G2 link up in a chemical bond that is both strong and stable, limited only by the amount of water available to G1 and G2.

Hey all I just wanted to post a couple pics of a daily sourdough that I've been practicing. The recipe and shaping advice came from a fellow TFL user and I am quite happy with the results. The bread is 20%whole wheat, 70% hydration, developed using Stretch n Folds, and is shaped, then retarded overnight and baked cold in a hot dutch oven at 450 with lid on for 13 min and then lid off for 25 more min. 

It's true I have neglected the blog. Certain friends (Taiwanese software engineer that you are) have commented on it, and so I have decided to re-launch with a two-part tutorial. This part will be an over-all review of bread making as I understand it.

Anyone that has tried to learn baking, either from a text or from a teacher has heard of the “steps”, the twelve steps of baking. I think of these steps in four movements; mixing, fermentation, shaping, and baking.

Mixing

mise en place

mixing

Shaping

dividing

I recently purchased a King Arthur baking steel with the thought to replace my baking stone for both pizza and bread baking.

How does it perform with breads? I typically create steam in my oven cavity for the crust, by sometimes placing a tray of water or using a sprayer. Does this effect the steel?

Thanks.

Hey yall!, yesterday and today I made this sourdough with kalamata olives and rosemary.

The formula is as follows. 592g bread flour, 29g whole wheat flour, 29g whole rye flour, 452g warm water, 98g olive juice, 130g chef (100% hydration), 72g kalamata olives, 33g rosemary and 13g salt.

My first crack at this very traditional Spanish sweet bread.  Also known as "King Cake" this is traditionally served at Christmas.  I have some good Spanish friends coming for dinner in a week's time so this was my practice run.  It's not Christmas but hey,  some things are too good to only have once a year !

Mostly Sourdough Brioches

Total weight: about 1600 g

3-build starter: 250 g @ 65% hydration

All flours: 732 g (100%), which breaks down as follows:
- 348 g unbleached bread flour
- 232 g unbleached all purpose flour
+ 152 g in starter

15 g sea salt (2%)
353 g eggs (48%)
100 g sugar (14%)
303 g unsalted butter (42%)
3 g fresh yeast (0.4%)
25 g flavours (alcohol: eau de vie & orange blossom water)

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This part is not important. Calculated for fun.