Blog posts

Carissimi Amici, 

ultimamente sono molto occupata con alcuni corsi professionali che sto frequentando, ma vi seguo sempre con grande affetto e stima. Siete per me sempre una straordinaria fonte di condivisione ed apprendimento.

Vi lascio l'immagine e la ricetta di una mia produzione, chissà se vi piacerà. A noi in famiglia questo prodotto piace moltissimo e lo preparo spesso per fare degli ottimi Sandwich oppure dei Toast farciti.

Well, my new chicken brick arrived the other week, but it's been crazy-busy chez Casa Witty and I've not really had the chance to post... Anyways, here is my new brick - it's the Mason Cash one, bigger than the one I had. I think it will easily take a kilo of dough, though this time I stuck to my standard-sized loaf.

Sometimes you just want a simple loaf. The bread is 100% fresh ground white whole wheat naturally leavened with a three stage build. The hydration is a little over 75%, just kept adding a little water until it felt right, and the only addition other than salt was a small amount of sorghum syrup. The final proof was in the fridge because the dough was moving to fast for proper flavor development and then it only took a couple hours. It was slashed with a double edged razorblade mounted on a homemade handle (the most recent addition to my baking equipment) and baked in a DO.

Sure, as it has been months since I tried these out once before.  Sold at Ken's as demi-baguettes.  As long as I'm on my thang about changing baguettes to batards, and vice versa, why not?  Those black things on top are/were golden raisins, not black jelly beans...

A simple sourdough with 50% whole wheat flour and 50% whole dark rye. With all that dark rye it tastes a bit like a pumpernickel. I had it rising in the fridge overnight again. It looks a bit like erosion, but very tasty.

Old school NY bagels  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_xTIrT_aiI&feature=youtu.be

One of our favorite things to do with bread is to make them the ‘old school’ way.  You can bread using sourdough made from scratch for that bake like a pumpernickel or you can use an old school method not used much anymore too.  Another fun thing about bread is to take old school and make it current and edgy.

Right now my families fav. bread.

250g  Starter * 50g Rye Starter fed with 100g water and 100g bread flour *

200g Rye Flour

500g Bread flour

1 handful Walnuts crushed smaller 

360m Water

15g Salt

2 Tbsp Rapeseed Oil

Pain au Levain from Della Fattoria Bread, by Kathleen Weber

November 10, 2015

David Snyder

Introduction

My brother, Glenn, bought me a surprise present: A copy of Kathleen Weber's bread cookbook. When I called to thank him, he revealed his motive. He thought I'd like it. We Snyder kids do that sort of thing for each other.

There have been other posts dealing with pretzels and whether to use a lye bath or not. I am firmly in the lye bath camp, and I can assure you, no self-respecting German baker would even consider making pretzels without it. And, being a self-respecting German baker, from a long line of German bakers, I give you my recipe for making Laugenbrezeln, with a lye bath ("Laugenbrezeln" means "lye pretzels," so if you don't use lye, don't call them Laugenbrezeln):

1 lb., 6 oz. (5 cups) bread flour

12 oz. (1 1/2 cups) warm water

5 Tbs. of soft, unsalted butter

November 11, 2010 was the day Fedra was born and she's five years old today. Coincidentally, we had some nice stuff in the fridge as well so to celebrate her day I cooked some dishes for us, her and her other four legged friends. I had no more flour to bake with so this week is a test of my cooking skills.


The birthday girl!