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May 7th, 2022. 91st bake.

500 grams of flour, 425 grams water, and 9 grams salt was hand mixed and left to soak for 1 hour.

I used scales to weigh the above, but did not take note of weight of each type of flour.

I wasn't sure how much water would be needed, so I started with 375 grams, then added 25, mixed, and then added 25 more, and that felt right.

I recently read a book on 19th century yeoman farmers in the Georgia upcountry.  As porridge loaves sound rather peasant-like, I decided to make one with a Georgia palate- oats, rye, and whole wheat flower (all typical crops of 19th century subsistence farmers in Georgia), peanut flour (because it sounds very Georgian even if no one was making peanut flour in the 19th cen.), barley (just because I enjoyed the sweet rich flavor in the loaf I made a couple weeks ago).

Bread specs. 2 loaves

Total flour 1000g

Central Milling bread flour- 635g (65%)

The first time I baked brioche I did a test bake baking them as buns.  For today’s bake I decided that I’d plait my brioche dough and bake it in a pullman pan for fun.  I reduced the butter because I ended up not having enough for 50% so decided to go ahead and make adjustments and make it at 25% butter, poor man’s brioche LOL.

I realized that I hadn’t baked a crumble topped pie in at least 3 years so I decided it was time to do a crumble pie again.  I’m using Kenji Lopez-Alt’s pastry recipe again because it is now my go to recipe.  It is a reliable way of baking a buttery yet tender pie crust every time.  Rather than cutting in butter, you make a  butter flour paste with ⅔ of the flour.  This essentially coats ⅔ of the flour with butter.  So later when water is added that flour encapsulated in butter cannot form gluten and guarantees a tender buttery crust.

Grandma style, but I will be making it again and measuring the ingredients. One apple is in the starter, another one as a part of hydration. Taste is very good, the structure of the crumb not too bad as well!

RECIPE AND CALCULATIONS HERE

It’s golden week in Japan which means we have a few national holidays in a row, which also means time to cook and bake. I knew that I wanted to make some crispy pork belly and turn it into a Perfect Bhan Mi Sandwich. 

RECIPE AND CALCULATIONS HERE

I’ve used semolina in my “weekly” bread for quite a while, but I’ve never done a mostly semolina bread before. Originally this bread only called for fennel…but I didn’t pay attention to HOW MUCH fennel it needed and I didn’t have enough. Necessity is the mother of improvisation in this case so I used anise seed to make up the total weight needed. There was another bread that had the combination of fennel and anise so I figured why not. 

My original plan was to test bake a bread raised by sakadane, however, that didn’t get bubbly enough to raise anything.  So plan B was baked instead.  I have a small amount of einkorn that I haven’t touched recently and thought that it would be perfect to use as a tangzhong.  It has poor gluten so gelatinizing it in a tangzhong is a perfect way to add it to a bread.  I also enjoyed a test bake of buttermilk bread that I did recently so decided on a buttermilk bread.

Thick slices of Cabot cheddar , buttered Challah and a 100 yr old iron skillet. Nothing could surpass the flavor and fragrance. 

Same old same old. Only new thing is using sweetened 1/2 and 1/2 on the dough pre bake. I love the flavor rather than the egg yolk wash. 

I started my first yeast water culture last weekend with a mix of dried fruit (raisins, dates and apricots...mostly raisins).  I didn't really know what to expect.  After four days, it looked like most of the fruit was floating and I had good fizz.  Some of the larger pieces of apricots and dates were still on the bottom but I had read that was to be expected (and made sense).  The 'test' starter was mixed up that evening and left in the cold oven with the light on over night.  It had nice activity by morning, having nearly tripled, so I mixed up a full le