Blog posts

There's been some discussion about the baker's percentage formula for the Tartine Loaf in Chad Robertson's book. I thought I'd create a spreadsheet that clarified the formula. As related on page 48 of his book, he gives the baker's percentage but only in terms of the final ingredients. The formula doesn't include the flour and water in the leaven. So while he states the bread has a 75% hydration, it is actually higher, 77% The formula also makes it difficult to convert the recipe into smaller loaves.

The past few loaves I've baked since I have moved into my new apartment at the start of the new year have been variations on the Tartine Bread whole wheat dough. Out of the five or six whole wheat loaves I have baked, I have been very, very pleased with the results. More often the crumb is remarkably open for such high percentage of whole wheat, the crumb is moist, the tang, though not assertive, lies in the background for an added depth of flavor. All in all, a lovely loaf of bread I am quite proud of and have shared with friends and family with high praise.

After tending to my new starter for two weeks, I finally got the courage to make some bread with it. I used the Tartine basic country loaf formula, which yielded two decently sized loaves. The leaven was made at around 10 PM the night before, the dough mixed at 11 AM the following morning, and the first loaf baked at around 7 PM. To my dismay, it came out like a dense, insipid sponge with a huge cavern in the middle.

Made these Kaiser rolls the other day, along with a loaf of whole wheat bread (actually about 50% whole wheat 50% bread flour).  The kaiser rolls turned out great, but the loaf I used to test the size of my new clay baker from King Arthur Flour.  I discovered that a 2 lb loaf fit's to the point of taking the shape of the baker, luckily I greased both top and bottom of it!  The rolls turned out like this and were nice a tender with a good crumb:

Hello, What a pleasure to discover farine-mc's post on her blog about Noah Elbers and his talented group of bakers, and this bread.
Thank you Farine!!! (Farine-mc's post is here: http://www.farine-mc.com/2011/01/noah-elbers-maple-oatmeal-bread.html - great information on how to make this bread, and video from Mr. Elbers' bakery, too!)

This oatmeal bread is made with cooked steel-cut oats, maple syrup, levain and a poolish. I had to try it!:

Following 4 sourdough baking disasters in a row, a planned not to throw the dough this time. I sprinkled 1tsp of yeast and baked it 2 1/2 hours later.

The crumb shot above is from a slice at one side of the loaf, while the the crumb below is from the other side.

I joined in the Dutch Oven craze with a Pain de Campagne bake a few weeks ago, and the outcome was fine, but I think I get my best results with Sylvia’s magic towel technique.  So, for my first try at a Tartine-like Country Bread, I baked two sloppy boules on the stone.

I never got around to posting last week, but I did get around to making yet another batch of poolish baguettes.  The only real change was to use King Arthur All-Purpose flour in the final dough (making up 2/3 of the total flour with the Bread Flour in the poolish).  Also, thinking that my lame was getting dull, I tried scoring with the other side of the blade (switching from "Method 1" to "Method 2" as dmsnyder terms them).  I wasn't enturely impressed with the results.

Results: Exterior

My first try at scones (with thanks to Breadsong!)