Blog posts

Hello from a first-time poster! I'm still working on getting truly photogenic loaves, but I am exploring other uses for my levain too. My partner and I were craving English muffins, which I thought would be a perfect way to use up some extra starter. Going off the very easy KAF recipe for sourdough English muffins shared by kjnits, I got some satisfactory results. The texture and flavor of these just crushes anything from the grocery store.

What can I say.. I like bread.  Just some from the last two weeks.. Tartine style, others with honey..

I’m lucky to have (so far) a healthy household and furthermore employment that I can accomplish with telework. 

I continue to bake 100% wholewheat sourdough, thanks to buying flour from a local-ish farmer. It is California grown red fife and after a few experiments, I’m getting delicious, light ( for ww) loaves out of it. I’ve been sharing loaves with friends which has given us all a chance for a few minutes socializing in the driveway. One friend even brought his violin and played some tunes :-). 

Here’s a crumb picture 

Half white half stoneground wholemeal.

I’m really sorry if I’m boring you guys, but I’m learning a lot as I repeatedly bake the same recipe.  I did this with Maurizio’s Beginner Sourdough and then Kirsten’s basic sourdough and now this 50% whole grain sourdough.  Up until now I hadn’t done any sourdough with this high a whole grain percentage, prior to this my 40% was a flat pancake.  However, after learning a few things in particular lamination when we did the CB with Kirsten, I feel that I’m getting a better handle on building structure.

I've been baking yeasted breads while I rebuilt a starter. Yesterday was the first bake with it, and I'm pleased.

The recipe is the San Francisco sourdough from BBA. I milled 5% rye and 95% hard white wheat.

I did stretch and folds every 20 minutes for the first two hours, then left it alone for three hours. Shaped and put into a banneton, then into the fridge to proof for two hours.

It's very lightly sour, which I expect from a new starter. I'll see how it develops over the next month before making a decision to keep or not.

After reading about this recipe, I decided to go for it, especially because I had never tried a 100% spelt loaf before and I like black treacle.  For the initial mixing I included sixty-five slap-and-folds because the dough felt reasonably strong, and that seemed to be fine.  Although I did try the letter fold technique for the first S&F, the dough stuck to my counter a lot, and I opted to leave the dough in my 6-quart Cambro tub for the second S&F and did the usual reach-under-and-lift-up.

I have a simple question. Why is it that we are supposed to put the shaped loaf into the banaton with the seam side UP? It seems counterintuitive to me, since the tension is on the TOP of the loaf; not on the bottom. Yet, my bread does turn out pretty good most of the time.

I don't have a round banaton. When I make boules (rarely these days), I never do that. I just put the dough on parchment and place with the top UP in a glass bowl, not with the seam up.