Blog posts

Pain au Levain from Hamelman's Bread (So what if I baked it umpteen weeks in a row? It's really good!)

Pain au Levain Crumb (the real reason I'm posting on this bread again) 

They say "Man cannot live by bread alone. You need side dishes."

 So, this is the first report on my trial of T55 flour my daughter brought back from Paris.  I used to use Shipton’s T55 years ago for a while, but this is the first time I’ve ever used T55 actually made in France….though it’s just a supermarket’s own brand flour, so definitely not the highest quality one.  But to be fair, the supermarket my daughter bought it from was Monoprix, which, according to Wiki, is “considered an up-scale chain and its business model was the inspiration for Waitrose,” in spite of its very un-assuring name :p,  so hopefully it’s

today second day of makeing focaccia bread , made two kinds one with house made oven dried tomatos , basil , galrlic

and a second with lemon zest , thime , cooked shallot and garlic.

problem the tomato  did not cook the same , as the lemon thime , and my salt was off on the tomato ,

i  baked both at 375 convection  , rotated twice , i have a anouther batch tomrow im gonna  try zookini

 advic0e on cooking time and racio to salt per pound of plour i used AP  and i used   one week old starter .

amd fillterd H2O 

Today was the final day of Artisan I. We made four baguette doughs: a hand mix, and three doughs with preferments - poolish, sponge, and prefermented dough. The week of dough handling clearly showed. Our shaping and scoring were much improved as the photos will illustrate. The hand mix was very similar to the short mix done in the spiral mixer on day 2. Our prefermented doughs were a little less acid than usual and this was attributed to the fact that the temperature overnight was 5 to 6 degrees cooler than normal. 

Hi,

My Wife and I decided to reverse some of the effects than my good bread had on our waistline (nice bloom ...).

The diet of choice for my wife is the "Scarsdale Meical Diet", carried out after a book she got in a charity shop years ago (British edition of the "Scarsdale Medical Diet" by Tarnower, 1985).

This diet calls for "Protein Bread", which hasn't been available in the UK, so the editors provided a recipe.

Please take a look at my outcome first:

Wow! Five breads in one day. Anyone thinking about doing this class needs to be prepared for long, busy days! We were on our feet almost all day!

 This is my version of something I ate growing up. I’m pretty sure it’s forbidden by Atkins, South Beach, and every other well-known diet, but sometimes you need food to feed the soul.

Recipe: (makes 5 thin pancakes about 9 inches in diameter)

Dough: 58% hydration 

300 g bread flour (12.7% protein)

174 g room temperature water

1 Tbsp sesame oil

10 g salt

Filling:

vegetable oil

scallions (about 1.5 to 2 cups chopped)

variations:

hello from Timisoara!

I baked recently "Roasted Hazelnut and Prune Bread" from Hamelman book, page 185. I removed the butter and the instant yeast, and I increased the hydration from 66% to 68%, and I left the dough in the fridge overnight for the final fermentation.