Blog posts

I’ve always loved the idea of babkas when I first saw them on the internet.  They look so shiny and sticky and yummy.  Now that I have sent John Dough to rehab and have him on an all rye diet I thought I would test him out and build a white levain to raise this my first babka.  My old starter could never raise a good white starter, I’d always have to add some whole grain of some sort to it for it to have an adequate rise.

Well, I got corona tested today, I don't have coronavirus, just a cold. I plan to bake again tomorrow morning.

My wife was very pleased with my last loaf, but she had some requests that I will be adding to my requirements list.

On the spur of the moment decided to have another run with the Caputo Integrale this time  using Potato, Rosemary and Thyme. I soaked the Caputo again 65% but this time just plain water 65% and again 0.5 yeast for 2 hours .Then mixed the remaining White plain flour 35%, salt 2%, malt 2%, potato 10%, butter 2%. rosemay and thyme  3:1 ratio 0.5%. mixed on the bench and bulk proved for 2 hours.

Dang!!! What a bake! Great Loaf!

I took advantage of Thanksgiving weekend to bake a bunch. I have the perennial problem of never following through completely on my plans because I try to do too much, but I'm still happy with what I accomplished.

Bake 1- Fullproof baking basic sourdough, but used 30% whole grain

Table of Contents for my BLOG

The following are a compilation of my bakes for the Rye Bread Community Bake.

Bake #1

Today we had a first in-person lab meeting at work since the beginning of the pandemic, and I wanted to bring a loaf of bread to share with my colleagues. Usually we would have something sweet, like cake, at these meetings, so I wanted a flavourful bread on the sweeter side, that would also not require butter or any other topping, to enjoy. So I improvised with the ingredients (almost wrote "reagents") that I had: I selected dried cranberries, poppy seeds and grapefruit zest. I also added a little honey to the mix for a little additional sweetness.

 Well, it's been almost 6 months since my last post...this pandemic thing has been occupying lots of time and energy, so much so there's little left at the end of the day for even simple, everyday things like baking bread.  I am trying to stay optimistic as things continue to unfold but admit to being more discouraged than encouraged these past few days what with the growing social unrest, ongoing disruption of the way things used to be, ever increasing pressure on front line/first responders and economic/financial hardships all around.