Blog posts

Take 1 - Following(?) the recipe

This did not end up being the greatest example of following a recipe as written, but that was the guiding intent.

Changes to formula:

- Reduce sugar to 15.%
- Increase salt from 1.0% to 1.5%

- Use non-osmotolerant yeast (SAF instant red) and reduce to 1.0%

- Replace 5.0% instant potato flakes with 4.0% potato starch
- Substitute 50.% milk for 5.0% dry milk, omitting water
- Replace citrus extracts with citrus zest
- Replace vanilla extract with vanilla sugar

Dec 23 - 24, 2021.

Goals:  500 g final dough flour, 60 % BRM WW, 20% whole rye, 20% AP/bread flour.  7% direct starter (not a levain), 3 days since fed. Bulk ferment at room temp. Overnight proof in fridge.

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12/23/2021.

12:45 pm:  Start soak/autolyse of flour/water/salt.

We are visiting my in-laws for Christmas, it has been so long since we’ve done this, and we have to bring bread right? A baker cannot arrive empty handed. So with my sister in law’s taste in mind I had to bake a sandwich bread. She practically lives on buttered toast. To try to make a variation on my other whole wheat Hokkaido loaves I decided to add my favourite seeds to this loaf, black and white sesame seeds. I realized it has been ages since I’ve added seeds to my breads so it was long overdue. I reduce the dough weight a bit to compensate for the addition of the seeds.

Made a basic loaf. I was probably aiming for 78%? 2 sets of stretch and fold with 1 hr intervals in between, and then an overnight rest in the fridge. The dough was very agreeable this time. Easy to Rubaud, when shaping it was stretchy, and when proofed it was airy. It lost some of its pockets when I tried scoring it with a knife 🥲 Did not check for windowpane tho....

It's chewy inside 😍😍 I think if I toast it the exterior will be crunchy and nicer~~ Goes so well with salted butter 🤤🤤 Gonna try with a wholegrain flour mix next~~

245g bread flour

So, it has been several years since I was baking ‘Grandi lievitati’ regularly. Getting back into the swing of things, and to some degree relearning what I once had figured out, or was at the very least working with more successfully…

Mastering Lievito Madre is no joke and is perhaps the most difficult accomplishment for any sourdough baker that wishes to really understand and control the many intricate nuances of fermentation and manipulate the biological and chemical processes which can ultimately make or break one’s endeavours.

I’ve never had Bara Brith before, it is a traditional Welsh bread, however, it can be made more like a cake using baking powder.  A baker from the UK posted her recipe which seemed so simple so I decided to try baking it.  As I kid I hated Christmas cake, but as with so many things as I’ve gotten older I’ve grown to like more things I used to dislike.

These delicious panini come from the town of Lecce in Puglia and are traditionally made with the excellent semolina rimacinata flour from that region which is famous all over Italy. Stuffed with minced onions and olives they delicious and addictive. Paprika is added to the mix or sometimes tomato paste is used instea). The smells that waft through the room as these bake are out of this world!. Scroll down to see my instagram reel showing how I shape them....

Today's bake followed Abel's method posted here.

The biga prep went well.  I put the flour in a large bowl and dissolved the yeast in the biga water.  Water was added to the flour 2 tbsp at a time and gently stirred with a knife.  I concentrated on pouring the water on dry flour to get as much distribution as possible.  The biga was nice and crumbly with no gluten development.

Yay, happy today. Made a rye/wheat mix bread today, I was in a hurry and thought "heck just try". So used unfed starter and put it straight into the mix. Did folds every 30mins, for about 2hrs, then bulk fermentation for 4 hrs, shaped and left in fridge for about 14hrs. It turned out really nicely, I think ;) Anyone experimented with non fed starter? It does speed the process up a lot and might be a nice option every now and then -  was I just lucky and beginners luck or just the rye or is there actually a chance that this would work with other sourdoughs too?

We are having Christmas dinner with my side of the family this evening and I offered to bring bread, of course.  My partner and I often make a meal out of roasted vegetables and butternut squash is in the rotation.  Some of these squashes are huge and more than we can eat at a sitting so we have leftovers.  Incorporating some of this into a bread seemed a good way of using up some leftover squash so I decided to make these rolls.

8 buns in 9” round pan

Ingredients

Sweet Stiff Starter