Blog posts

Baked in a cast iron skillet

Here is my first bake from The French Baker by Sébastien Boudet. Came out very nice. I had to retard the final rise overnight in the fridge. Sleep was in need. Next morning I took it out and let it finish rising at room temp for a few hours. Has rye in it and that contributes to the flavor of the loaf. The family and I liked the loaf very much. The recipe says it makes one loaf. It was to big for my cast-iron cooker so I split it into two loafs. Came out fine.

 Some years ago, I remember seeing tables lined up in a shopping Mall here in Dubai, where locally homemade Artisan crafts are displayed for sale. For months now, I have been planning on taking my home baking a step further, and the idea of selling bread to public was brewing slowly in my mind. So, I looked up for information on the Crafts Market, and found that “ARTE” or Arts and Crafts Market run a once in a month exhibition, were only locally handmade art work and craft items are featured by local Artisans.

It seems everyone is enjoying cheesy bread's lately and with Ian's last post on Calzone and watching 'Diner's Drive Inns and Dives' hosting an old favorite diner of mine and it's Calzone's.  It has certainly put me in the mood for one.   

Mike had taken Saturday off from work to do a mountain bike race and neighbors were all home.  So I was make K.Forkish's levain pizza's for everyone.

Before making the pizza's.

 When my husband and i were in England for the holidays, I brought my sourdough starter with me.

Member Omid posted an excellent and very comprehensive blog on Iranian Barbari bread which can be viewed here if you haven't seen it:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/36357/persianiranian-barbari-bread

The result is a wonderfully subtle bread with slightly nutty undertones and a structure not too dissimilar to french baguette.  End to end I was surprised at just how simple these were to make.  They are well worth a go.

Recipe

My wife requested an Italian style bread to go with her lasagna for this weekends belated holiday dinner with my family.  I couldn't just make a simple Italian bread of course, so I made a new version of an older formula I posted about early last year.  This is loosely based on Peter Reinhart's Italian bread from BBA where he uses a biga which I replaced with a durum based starter.  I also used some freshly milled white hard wheat, freshly milled spelt and rye flours along with KAF French style and Durum.

I had a request to make crusty sourdough rolls when my husband and I were visiting family in England for the holidays.  I brought along my sourdough starter in checked luggage (TSA searched it), but the "baby" white and rye sourdough starters came through very well.  In fact, they performed better than the "mother" sourdough starters back in the U.S.

…based upon a formula by Francesco Favorito.

Oh my. These are some damn fine tasting doughnuts, easily the best I have ever eaten, seriously!

Lucy decided to help the girls out with their white bread fix by making another one, a SD one this time, for them to gnaw on   To make the bread a little moiré healthy, we also added in some whole, rye, spelt and wheat.  TO increase the flavor we added in our favorite taste enhancers (that aren’t Toadies), 10 g each of corn, potato and steel cut oat and a bit of farina.