Blog posts

Wohooo,back from vacation and here now I can finally post about my two recent bakes.

Some of you witnessed the strange transformation the Hamelman Vermont SD w/increased whole grains took in my kitchen.Here is a synopsis with pictures:

- due to me being too frazzled to actually do the most sensible thing-using the metric large scale amounts to reduce to home size, I ended up with a way different percentage ratio.

Semolina [Durum] Bread and Sourdough Seed Bread.

I've been home-based all Easter weekend, so I decided on Thursday that I would make an inroad into the Hamelman Challenge set up by Brian: see http://thebreadchallenge.weebly.com/

Inspired by the beautiful pictures of Hamelman Pain au Levain 5% Rye posted by Larry, I decided to make it.   I knew that this would be tough, given my experience level, but I figured I might as well give it a try.   I started yesterday with making the levain.   It calls for old levain, which I didn't have, so I decided to use the sourdough starter that I've been tending for the last few months even though it is made with White Whole Wheat, for the two tablespoons of old levain that the formula calls for.   There must be another way to do it, but sinc

I recently baked, for the third time, two sourdough boules, which besides the primary purpose: Eating, tested the effects of slashing, and steaming methods, and the behavior of a new starter. The latter is posted elswhere (Purchased Dried Starter Reactivation Survey).

These loaves were slashed identically, placed in the oven simultaneously, and swapped position after 15 minutes of steaming. The ovenspring realized is shown here,

Last week my wife and I took a short vacation to a small farm on the outskirts of Victoria, BC.  We stayed with Diane (aka intern#2 last year) and her husband Ed - both gracious hosts, tour guides, and entertainers for our (almost) week long stay.  On one of the days I taught a couple of classes at The French Mint, a culinary school in Victoria run by chef Denise Marchessault.  In the morning I taught a class on croissants, in the evening a class about sourdoughs.  Both went great.

I'd bought some smoked salmon to have with Greenstein's sour rye which I baked last week. My wife's comment was, "It's too bad we don't have bagels." It happens I had a couple bags of Sir Lancelot (KAF's high-gluten flour) in the pantry, as well as all the other necessary ingredients, on hand. I also had a lecture to prepare, and I was running out of excuses to delay finishing it. So, I made bagels.

I was putting in this blog and we had an after shock from the 6.9 earthquake that just hit Baja, Mexico.  It was said to be felt as 3.2 here.  Really shook the neighbors up too!

I baked a...you guessed it...Buttermilk Chocolate Cake with Buttermilk choc. frosting requested by Mike my husband.  I'm trying the new unbleached cake flour from King Arthur and also their double chocolate coco powder.  I also thawed out a Sourdough Potato bread for..maybe a sandwich snack later on this evening from our Roasted leg of lamb dinner.

I made up a simple dough last night and planned to leave the bowl by the woodstove, which actually went cold a lot sooner than I was hoping for, so the dough tried to rise in a 60* house.  I turned my oven on this am, and let it warm up for a minute before turning it back off and setting the bread bowl inside.  I'm not sure if I can expect my dough to rise any more, and that's fine.  I'll punch it down soon and then get it ready for 2nd rising prior to baking. 

This is the formula for a bread I made last year that gives you a packed bunch of flavours and uses the old bread as a soaker in the dough. I've been reading Mini's post with great interest as I'm keen to try this and this time put the old rye bread in with the starter and see what difference it makes, sounds very exciting.

Anyway I thought I would like to share this one with you