Blog posts

I recently took the 'Artisan Baking at Home I' course at the King Arthur Baking Education Center in Norwich, VT. I pondered whether it would be worthwhile, as I'm a not-a-beginner home baker and (thought I) was familiar with a lot of the material in the course description. I finally decided to go as I was sure to pick up some tips from the pros, and taking the course would allow me to see and feel the various doughs. And I could mess around with dough and commercial equipment for four days in a row with other breadheads. I'm glad I went.

2014 Dabrownman’s TFL Blog Index

1/1/2014 - New Year’s Panettone - 2014

1/3/2014 - YW SD Spelt and White Whole Wheat Miche

1/5/2014 - Saturday Night Pizza - 1/4/2014

This is my first attempt at ciabatta. Handling a wet dough like this is pretty disastrous when I wrongly deviate from the instruction. As I thought if I would eventually move the dough on to parchment paper, I dumped the  dough onto parchment paper right after bulk fermentation. This turns out to be a disaster, it stuck to the paper, I couldnt shape it nor moved it. Next time Im gonna oil the paper or shape it on bench. 

With the advent of a new job and a change of location I stopped baking bread over the last few years. A few loaves here and there but using quick and less tasty recipes. Reasons included not having time to bake (full time job and running regularly) and moving to a place with less space in the kitchen (very difficult to get my Kenwood chef out easily). Well the Kenwoods gone, I have a new 4 day/week job and I was fortunate/unfortunate enough to slip a disc over Christmas! So sat around on a sunny Sunday unable to run I decided to go out and buy a bag of Rye flour to start a new culture.

I've been baking the Country Bread from Chad Robertson's Tartine book a lot over the last year.  I tweaked the formula and procedure a bit each time and learned a lot about working with sourdough all the while.  Last month, I received Tartine #3 as a gift and I'm ready to be challenged by the higher whole grain formulas.  The Spelt Wheat is my second bake from the book (the first was the Oatmeal Porridge Bread).  It uses spelt flour, white unbleached flour, whole wheat flour (I used Red Fife), and a bit of wheat germ.

Once I got my feet wet, like many, I was no longer scared of yeast! lol

So I made a loaf my wife had requested. A walnut scallion bread. I could not find a recipe for this online so I just winged it. It needs more scallions! But the walnuts are coming through great! Anyways, pretty good for my second loaf ever.  :D

I used this as the method.

If anyone has advice, feel free to let me know any mistakes. I´m here to learn! Just play nice eh?

Greetings all on TFL! My name is Cory, I´m new here as you can see. I finally got the nerve to bake some bread so thought I would share here. I have some experience with cookies, muffins, pancakes and crepes. Even tried a no yeast pizza dough (which was not worth trying again..). But until a couple days ago I had not touched yeast. Now that I have, to me it is similar to forcing yourself to dip your toe into a river for the first time, but once you´re completely in the water you don´t want to get out.

It has been awhile since I've been on Fresh Loaf.   I have been bread busy and so too bread exhausted for posting lately. For the last few weeks I've been selling on Saturday mornings at a winter market, held in the greenhouse of a large nursery.  

Busy week here. Work, cleaning, and baking. My dad, 87, is here to spend most of the month. My domestic partner, Mark is returning home from a 6 month stay in Boise building a french fry factory and it's Super Bowl weekend. I have slider buns proofing for baking, cranked out a batch of brownies and getting ready to whip up some scones to freeze for a later date. But earlier this week, when it still just and peaceful, I decided to try baguettes for the first time. I followed Dave's SJSD baguette post for this and think they turned out fairly well.

Winter Market 2 for me (I've missed quite a few as I'm taking my weekend back for a bit).  Yet another variation on the Pane Maggiore that I so adore (rhymed)  This variation came out of necessity.  Instead of an 18 hour wheat levain at 1:10:10 I used two levains.  One a whole wheat 1:2:2 for 8 hours and an equal portion of ripe white starter.  Yet again a fantastic loaf.  this may be the best of the bunch but if I recall the one made with 1/2 rye sour and 1/2 white starter was also pretty darn fantastic.