Blog posts

This is an update on the small amount starter experiment. I followed Dab's suggestion to drop the starter amount to 1 g and reduce the amount of fermented flour in the levain. 

The levain was built using 1g starter, 10 g bread flour and 10 g water. Left to mature on the counter at 30C for about 8 hours. The final dough was comprised of 220 g total flour (including levain's flour) and 75% hydration. I used a similar flour mix as in the first experiment: 50% bread flour and the rest a mix of white spelt, rye and ruchmehl (half-half whole wheat). 

I haven’t made Baguettes in over a year and I’m pretty rusty although I’ve never been as consistent or practiced as the master. I used the “36 hour + Baguettes” recipe by txfarmer, but I reduced the hydration to 72% which was too dry in retrospect, but easier to handle when out of practice. I used Central Milling Type 70 malted flour which gives excellent flavor.

So I’ve always wondered of different brands of flours actually made a difference, and from researching the internet, the answer seemed obvious... yeah. Especially KA flour, which seems to have an extremely loyal group of followers. But rather than just taking their word for it, I wanted to put it to the test. So I made 2 loaves of the same bread, but one with KA bread flour, one with cheap, store brand bread flour. 

I was able to get the store brand bread flour on sale for only $1 (score!), while KA bread flour was about $5 a bag.

I’ve been making Trevor’s Champlain sourdough a lot recently and have made progress but the open crumb still eludes me. This is last weekend’s bake and I’m pretty happy with it.  I increased the hydration by 2% and that helped. But I’m nowhere near “volcanic crumb”. Very pleased with the oven spring and blisters!

This is one of the prettiest breads I bake - Buckwheat Cranberry Levain! I used to make it just for autumn / winter, but it is such a favourite that I decided to put it in the baking rotation today. This time I baked it in cast iron pots seam-side up, and the resulting natural burst is quite attractive. The original recipe was inspired by cmatecun's Buckwheat Cherry Levain, but I've probably modified somewhat over time.

Hello friends! 

Nothing fancy happening here today. I really like white sourdough bread, but, adding a bit of whole grains makes it taste better to me. So I figured if nothing fancy is happening inside the loaf, I would challenge some of the habits I had developed when making bread. Just try something new and see what happens, right?

I was so very happy to see Ru back with us that I decided to make her Toasted Oat Sourdough.  I started of with a hiss and a roar and then decided I should check the recipe (alway dodgy to trust memory these days.)  

Wednesday evening I milled the whole wheat berries and rye berries that I would need for this recipe.  I sifted the wheat flour to get the bran. 

Levain Build (wednesday evening)

25 g refreshed starter + 105 g flour + 28 g bran + 106 g water. Mix and leave overnight on bench.

Soaker (Thursday morning)

After last Monday’s bread was puddle mooshed and refused to spring making ciabatta into sandwich thins, Lucy wasn’t going to have another failure if she could help it so she took another route with a similar recipe to make sue she got a nice loaf of bread this time.

Life's gotten the better of my time lately and Charlie's been well neglected in the fridge.. but thankfully he doesn't mind.. that said I decided to send him on journey and now part of Charlie is baking up a pizza storm in Virginia Beach with a good friend of mine..

Meanwhile, I finally got around to baking last week and made a Tartine whole wheat loaf and made Danni's version of the Swiss Raisin Muesli bread that I've been trying to replicate. Danni - great recipe..

I was suddenly craving white sandwich bread. That’s very uncommon for me as I always prefer whole grain sourdough bread. Then, I figured out I actually wasn’t craving any white sandwich bread but the store bought purple rice coconut white sandwich bread. Easy solution: drop the white flour and sub in whole wheat, put in some purple rice flour (the original version only mix in cooked rice) and include a coconut kaya jam filling. You get something not only healthier but much more flavorful (coconut milk in both the dough and filling!).