Blog posts

Dec. 18, 2019.

Goal:  25% KA AP loaf, 75% home-milled whole wheat.  Intending for largest loaf to fit in the deep part of the Lodge 3.2qt combo cooker.  Was off by 145 g, should have been 1200 g, instead of 1345 g.  88% hydration for the soaker with the home milled flour.  Approx 87% final hydration. 1.9% salt.  Using a new starter from CFH, SF  Sourdough, not the Carl's 1847, or the "Whole Wheat/desem" that I had used prior to that.

Happy Holiday Wishes to All!

It's been a long time since I've posted anything.   

I came back today searching for this yeasted bread to bake for a family Christmas breakfast bread.

 It's been so long!  I could not remember the name or where to find the recipe.  After searching I found it. 'Peter Reinhart's, The Bread Baker's Apprentice cinnamon raisin walnut bread'.

 My favorite is to use white raisins and pecans.

This bread is loved and has been baked by so many of our long time Freshloafers!

Made these two to give away (one sent priority mail along with a spelt boule), so unfortunately I have no pictures of the crumb. They smelled delicious and I got great oven spring. They are both just under 25% whole wheat (a mix of mostly HRSW with some Kamut that I had on hand, all freshly ground), with the remainder being half AP and half bread flour. My starter is 100% hydration organic whole wheat. Formula makes two loaves, amounts are in grams.

I haven't posted any breads on here for a long time because I haven't felt like I've baked anything different enough to be worth posting. Nonetheless, I still enjoy looking at the site every once in a while, and especially seeing people's blogs about their recent bakes.

This boule is a mix of two doughs (that I also baked separately).
The purple dough was made up of this (+salt @ around 2% of flour + potato):

I am a novice bread baker. My only two efforts have met with disaster after placing the loaves in their pans for second rising. They don’t. I’m open to ideas to improve my success. 

Loaf 1: Forno Antico Santa Chiara Durum Wheat

Well, it’s a been a bit of time since posting.  Last night I had itchy fingers to go back to a favorite but with a pair of twists.  My most-favored sesame semolina based on Mr. Hamelman’s 125% hydration AP flour version.  However this time I subbed out the levain for my old favorite 75% mixed flour levain.  

Mixed Dec. 14, 2019.  Baked Dec. 15, 2019.

Mostly the same as #11, 75% home-milled whole grain (mostly Prairie Gold), 25% King Arthur All Purpose. But this time reduced levain to 7% prefermented flour.  3 hour bulk ferment, overnight in fridge.   Dusted in a combo of whole brown rice flour and ground chia seed.  Baked at same oven temps, but an extra 10 minutes, to an internal temp of 210.4 F.

Did not get much oven spring, but crumb was still excellent.  

After my first attempt to bake bread in my hooded BBQ I had several issues to address.  Most critical was the fact that the gas hose had touched the body of the grill and partially melted! So I ordered a new one and a second grate.  These arrived this week so yesterday I repeated the previous bake, substituting rye for spelt.

12 December - refresh starter and build levain before going to bed

13 December

08:25 am autolyse 105 g freshly milled whole wheat, 50 g freshly milled rye 440 g flour + 10 g gluten flour and 400 g water.

A staple of traditional Italian delis, it's surprisingly hard to find a quality recipe for Italian Prosciutto Bread online, also known as Lard Bread. This is a bread loaded to the brim with thick, cubed prosciutto, adding in parmesan and lots of black pepper for extra flavor, and brushed with prosciutto fat for tenderness and a beautiful gloss. While this is not a pretty looking bread by any means, it is uncontrollably delicious: you won't be able to stop eating it. This recipe is adapted from numerous others.