Blog posts

Trying a new ingredient or a new formula excites me.  If I find a new method or a new ingredient to make my daily bread the next morning, I go to sleep with a smile the night before.   I read about the Chia seed in one of Johnny's comments on Sourdough Companion a long while ago and had tried Chia seeds with other grains and seeds several times but never on its own.  I was happy with the results each time but never stopped to think why the result

Nobody in Germany thinks of baking regular, plain white rolls at home. You get them freshly baked everywhere, in bakeries, supermarkets, and even in gas stations. Every German region has them, called "Rundstueck" in Hamburg, "Schrippe" in Berlin, "Semmel" in Munich, or simply "Broetchen" (little bread).

Been looking forward to make this bread. Finally got my Durum Flour in the mail (not available at local stores). Followed the recipe from Rose Beranbaum's The Bread Bible. Flour (bread:67%, durum 33%), Water 80.4%, Yeast .79%, Salt 2.2%.

Biga: 75 g Flour, Instant Yeast 1/16 tsp, water 59 g, optional: Malt Powder 1/2 tsp.

Worried that I totally ruined the dough. I allowed the biga to ferment in a cool area for 24 hrs (recommended @ 55-65 F). I thought my storage room is that cool. When I checked the room temp it was 72%.

GERMAN BROTCHEN

Hey All,

I am on baking hiatus until Fall, or at least until it gets cooler here in NYC...

Until then, happy baking!

Tim

I wanted to share these pictures of the bread being sold in a stand in Dolceaqua, Italy.  It was a small festival displaying the products of Dolceaqua. The size of the bread was amazing. Imagine the size of the ovens. 

Actually just a yeasted multigrain. Pretty much according to the recipe (Reinhart, Crust & Crumb), apart from: two-day old biga instead of one, milk instead of buttermilk, white rice instead of brown rice, added more salt.

Without going through the practice of making bread and everything,  I wouldn't have attempted this. As this delicacy requires techniques as complex as making a baguette,  and patience that is required in making sourdoughs.

Thank goodness for TFL, and good thing I did a search here before making this formula (I always do that with this book, just too many errors). The starter amount is wrong in the book, should be 75g rather than 300g. With that corrected, the process was pretty painless.