Blog posts

……just so that you know I do not live by baguettes alone. :p

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Before I start...... Hope all you US-based TFLers are safe and unharmed in any way in the hurricane.  Please know that my prayer is with you.  (Let's forget just for now that I'm an atheist....)

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I've been continuing practicing my baguettes and have progress to report. I've lowered my hydration yet again to 71% and the dough is even easier to shape and more importantly score. While there's still some room for improvement, I was able get some nice ears on the last few loaves.

I've been going through a wing-it phase, experimenting with creating sourdough cakes, brownies and other goodies I'd previously only made using more conventional recipes. I wasn't intending to make chocolate sourdough bread at all, but did so on an impulse when one of my wing-it episodes landed me with a bit too much chocolate and walnut cake mixture.

Hello,
My neighbor had a bumper crop of Transparent apples this year and generously shared with us :^)
I used some to make Ciril Hitz's Apple Kuchen, from his book Baking Artisan Pastries and Breads.
The foundation for the Kuchen is Rum-Raisin Brioche! :^)
 .. the baked Kuchen

...a crumb shot

A very delicious recipe.  This is my first test version using, fresh Black Mission figs, the orginal recipe from 'The Art of Wood Fired Cooking' by Andrea Mugnaini uses, dried figs and is baked in a wood fired oven '.  This book has many of the basics for mastering your wfo and, full of tasty recipes and lovely photos. 

I'm behind on my blogging.   Hopefully I'll find time soon to document the following:

1.  Trip to Tartine Bakery and Acme Bread back on July 2.

2.  Efforts to reproduce Acme's whole wheat walnut sourdough bread.

3.  Experiments with wholewheat bread with LOTS of seeds in it.

This is another one of Hamelman's Pain Au Levain With whole wheat from His book "BREAD".

I'am testing out my new flour's performance with naturally leavened breads.

I mixed my dough ever so lightly, and did two stretched and folds (letter fold on the bench) @ 60 minutes intead of one at 50min. So, the fermentation time was 3 hours intead of 2.5.

I retarded the shaped loaves right after shaping for 8 hours, and left them to proof at room temp. for 1 hour while the oven was preheating to 510F.

This was the first time I used Yeast Water (almost 2 weks ago) Since then, I made 6 loaves, using different formulas, but I wanted to share with you this one, because it has a funny shape, it was my first attempt at using yeast water, and because it was particularly good. My apple yeast water looks like this: http://codrudepaine.ro/2011/08/mere-soare-povesti-si-o-jucarie-noua/.