Blog posts

I'm blessed in that I have a husband who not only washes dishes, but also makes excellent beer and wine. A couple of days ago he was mopping up the 'warm' cupboard after his beer primary foamed over. I handed him a small bowl and spoon and asked him to skim some foam of the top of the beer for me - real barm!

After sitting for an hour or two the bowl of barm had subsided to a murky, foamy puddle of about 2 tablespoons in the bottom of the bowl. Then the adventure began...

This is the 3rd try at baking a bread for BBD #83.  The theme is to bake a bread that has flours other than rye, spelt and wheat in it.  The first one used wine for the liquid and it killed of the SD wee beasties here BBD #83 - 50% Whole 10 Grain Half Sprouted Beaujolais, Brie and Salami SD Rolls With Pistachios .  The 2nd shot was a complete success but my wife gave the loaf away to a friend so I didn’t get a crumb shot here

First time to join a challenge like this, I'm so excited! The deadline for bread baking day is on June 1, 2016 so if you're interested to join, you still have time to formulate and submit your entries! Just follow the instructions here:
http://www.kochtopf.me/bbd-83-brot-spezialmehl-bread-special-flour

*I don't have an oven and measuring tools so I take a different approach to baking. I hope this one qualifies...

With an early get-away tomorrow morning for a road trip north for family affairs, I just had to get in two final bakes.  The first was the Hamelman Pain au Levain with whole wheat.  Which I've raved about endlessly.  For a twist, I aded some diced fresh apple and toasted walnuts.  The walnut flavor this time, having been toasted, came through strong, but the apple still held back on the flavor profile.  Back to the drawing board.

The two foccacias shown here use a variety of ingredients that celebrate the arrival of spring: herbs from the garden, sprouted flour and lemon. That's where the similarity ends. Same dough, baked less than 18 hours apart, presented vastly different results. Has that happened to you before?

- Baked the first loaf on Tuesday around 6 pm. after leaving the dough to rest at room temperature for 3 hours. Result: open crumb.

Greetings from Lima, Peru!

Just cutted my walnut SD bread I made yesterday... 

100% Bread flour
50% Levain
65% Water
1.5% Salt
30% Walnut (I put it whole, but can also be chopped)

Started building the levain (1:1:1) the night before, 12hs rest in fridge.

I've been trying minor variations every week in hydration and flour blend. This one should have had at least another 2%of water but otherwise I'm pretty happy with it. 

20%type 70 malted

30% whole wheat

30%AP

15%barley

5%rye

16%starter @100%hydration

total hydration 76%

Overnight autolyse, mix and stretch&folds then about 4hours room temp and overnight bulk in the fridge. Warm up, shape, proof, bake next day.

For some time now I've been baking an Ale & Yeast Poolish bread, originally from Richard Bertinet's "Crust". I make it with my husband's home-brewed light hoppy ale, and it is a customer favourite (and family & friends too). It's a delightful all-purpose bread, good for sandwiches, toast, with soup or cheese or whatever. And it is probably the best-behaved dough I've ever worked with. It seems infallible!

As a student, baking has become a wonderful way to work and create in a different way as well as relieve stress! These past few months have been full of final papers and exams, but with some nice baking breaks. I thought I would post the photos from a few loaves lately!

Two of the sourdough miches I bake most often!

At least once a week, I bake bread.  One of our favorites is the ciabatta (slipper, in Italian).  But, yesterday, I decided to revisit a book I purchased a while back and baked boule (ball, in French). The last bread I baked from that book was an Italian Semolina Bread.

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