Blog posts

Monday 8:30 AM (Hey! This is like work!) saw a room full of bakers and imposters gathered to hear a lecture on commercially yeasted pre ferments from Didier Rosada and Jeffrey Yankellow.

I don't think it is fair, nor do I think it is possible for me to record the entire content of this two and a half hour lecture in this blog.  However, there are some highlights that bear reporting.

I found in the internet very few recipes with diastatic and non-diastatic malt. So I made a few experiment, which in the end gave a very successful result.

Ingredients:

I have been baking regularly for a year and a half. The fresh loaf has been my primary education. Thank you all.

This represents this week's levain bake. The formula evolved from Hammelman's Vermont sourdough, and continues to drift weekly. The weather changed recently and the kitchen is cooler; the formula will be different next week.

I like to mix an 1800g batch at 78% hydration, as the numbers are friendly. 1000g flour (here: 75% Gold Medal unbleached AP, 20% White whole wheat, 5% rye), 780g water, and 20g salt; 20% flour prefermented.

Over the past few years I have tried countless pizza dough recipes on my quest for what I consider the perfect pizza crust.

I am still trying to develop a recipe for cream buns something like the scones from Murchies in Victoria, BC (see my previous posts on the topic here and here).  What I baked yesterday turned out awfully good and, if memory serves me right, is along the same lines of what they serve at Murchies.

This baguette has many inspirations: the long cold autolyse from Anis, long cold bulkrise from Gosselin, SD instead of instant yeast from David's San Joaqin SD... With 12 hr autolyse, 24 hr cold rise, the process last at least 40 hours from start to finish, however, very little time is spent on real work, most of the time, I just have to wait and let time do its magic.

After having drooled over Floyd's Blueberry Cream Cheese Braid for a long time, I finally made it yesterday. I made half a batch and am glad I did. I would recommend at least 3 braids if you make a whole batch. The half batch was so big it was hanging of both ends of my 15" sheet pan. That being said, after breakfast this morning there is a big piece missing! It was great.

Changes and observations.

 Yes, yes, I know that now that my life has resumed its "normal" rhythm, I should get back to baking.  (And I did do a pretty good first bake in the new oven - which was eaten before pictures could be taken - but which showed me just how many adjustments I was making for my old oven and what kind of better results I might get with one that actually works.) But believe it or not I had never been to Las Vegas and in one of those jet lagged induced flights of fantasy that I sometimes get, I had booked the tickets and registered for some lectures, and well, here I am at the IBIE (Inte