Blog posts

Last month, while experimenting with durum flour, I hacked together a loaf that turned out to be surprisingly tasty.   Fortunately when I'm hacking around, I'm disciplined enough to write things down just in case.    Yesterday, I made it again, with a few minor changes, and it came out more or less the same as last time, so I'm declaring it a keeper.  

After last week’s super crusty bread, we decided to give our jaw a break with pan bread this week. Don’t get me wrong. I love crusty artisan bread but from time to time, you can’t help craving softer pan bread.

Hi everyone! Here is one of my latest "creations". I'm very very pleased with the "look" the "taste", the "smell", the "everything". The loaf filled the house with its aroma, I could sniff it from the other room. I followed Hamelman's instructions, only I didn't toast the seeds in the oven, but in a frying pan. I did 2 S -F at 50 min interval, and retarded the dough in the fridge for 10 hours.

I discovered the other day I had 3 almost-full bottles of fennel seed, presumably due to repeated cravings for fennel, a bad memory, and a very cluttered spice cabinet.  There's only one thing to do when that happens, of course: make bread with fennel seeds in it.

I whomped up some dough as follows:

450g unbleached bread flour, 50g whole wheat flour, 1 tablespoon SAF "red" instant yeast, 1 tablespoon fennel seed, 1.5 teaspoons salt, 0.5 teaspoons diastatic malt powder, 333g very warm water. 

Sorry all, The "Keyword" does not get printed in the post.   I put "Carol Field in the Italian Baker" in the Keyword so you would know the source of the reference.  Page 36 if you have the book.

She says, "Never sift flour for bread; always for pastries and cookies."   How does one sift??  Would an ordinary strainer do or do you need a flour sifter??

Secondly, what are we sifting for?   Do we expect lumps in the flour or are we adding air??

This past Monday my wife and I arrived home from our very first visit to Europe where we spent 3 nights in Prague, then 8 full days cruising the Danube from Germany, through Austria, Slovakia, and finally disembarking in Budapest. It was a marvelous trip which we enjoyed immensely, but as always it's good to get back home, especially after spending 10 + hours flying, transferring, waiting to fly, then transferring twice more before landing back on Vancouver Island.

I went to the local Italian store and bought 5 pound of Antimo Caputo (from Naples) flour.   First of all, it is expensive.  I think it was $5 for 4 pounds or was it $15 for 5 pounds, I do not remember.   I didn't care because I wanted to try it.

I made several 1 pound portions, used two and froze the others in separate oiled freezer bags.