Blog posts

We've been baking and cooking for the past week for our annual open house. We started doing this four years ago to share our homemade wines and brews with our friends and neighbors. With my new-found interest in improving my baking skills, my wife dubbed this year's efforts "Breads and Spreads". We served two sourdoughs, baguettes, vollkornblot, and light rye. We also offered a potpourri of rye sourdoughs: one with walnuts, one with walnuts and blue cheese, and the last with chestnuts and feta cheese.

This was a busy baking weekend for me.  Thursday night I started the levain for a batch of "my" sourdough bread, which I baked on Friday night.  It turned out quite acceptably in the end, but I was most excited about the maiden use of my new 1 pound oval willow proofing baskets that I picked up on a Christmas week field trip to SFBI/TMB Baking.  I made this dough with a pretty low (64%) hydration because it was my first use of these baskets.  I did not want the dough to stick to them and mess them up before I could get them seasoned and broken in.  Given that, I had

The couple of folks who actually read my posts may have noticed that I seem to be posting at crazy hours.

I've been working in the Ryukyu (or Okinawa) and although beginning to suffer from baking withdrawal have been absolutely blown away by the beautiful breads in the nearby department store.  Unfortunately, to a Western palate, many of these breads are tasteless - but they sure are beautiful.

I finally bribed a colleague who has both a camera and photography skills to take pictures.

After leaving the bagels in cold storage for the day, I start prepping for the Boil and Bake portions of my Bagels.

I begin with a 20 quart Aluminum Stock Pot about 3/4 filled with water to which I then add 3 Tablespoons of Baking Soda.

While this is heating up I preheat my oven up to 500'f.

To the relief of many I imagine, I've decided to start maintaining my blog here at TFL rather than post a new thread in a forum every time I bake somethig I want to post about, be it for success or failure. I will not go back and add old pictures here that are already posted elsewhere, so this will not be a complete history of my baking.  That's okay, because some of the earliest should be history, and should be left that way.

First up: the Failure.

They were completely sourdough, but something wasn't quite right. They got a bit too puffed. I'm thinking that the fact that I let the dough come back up to room temperature had something to do with that. I should've boiled straight from the fridge, then baked. It could also be that I didn't get them stretched out quite enough, either.

Freezing bread can be a very good thing!  We loved the P Reinhart's Panettone so much at Christmas, I made another batch for New Years. Knowing we would enjoy this bread anytime, I carefully wrapped one up in foil and plastic wrap.  What a treat. We had it this morning with Mascarpone cheese.  Some breads really are so good it's understandable why they are kept for that special time.  Though still delicious. It was a tad dryer and is best enjoyed freshly baked while still very moist and tender.   

Because I always like the books with the pictures, I also like to take lots of pics for instructional purposes.  Its always easier to understand if you can see it for yourself.

This is double batch of SD Bagels....

My recipe is from BBA...

I start with 70oz. of SD starter to which I add 3 teaspoons of Instant Yeast and mix in.

To this add in 34oz. of High Gluten flour ( I use KA Sir Lancelot)

1.4oz. Kosher Salt

1.0oz Honey

I then mix all together to get a rough mass.

Between last weekend's experiments with varying hydration levels, locating rye flour, and tuning up my sourdough starter over the past few days, things took a turn for the better with this weekend's bake.  If I had to rank the importance of those three, it would be a difficult choice.  I'd probably nominate the improved starter as the most important but that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't obtained some rye flour.

One of the families favorites, pizza..

Pizza is extremely easy to make from scratch, better than delivery, and a great way to impress guests.

Average time of making 3 pizzas from scratch about and hour and a quarter start to finish.

My recipe is simple.

• 908 grams bread flour (I use KA special)
• 14 grams instant yeast
• 29 grams Kosher salt
• 600 grams spring water (since my tap water is yucko)

I place weighed flour in large bowl, and whisk in yeast.

Once whisked in I then whisk in the salt.