Blog posts

I decided to take another shot at this lovely recipe from Wally, and made a double batch. Merely added 10g of home-made, improvised bread spice and followed recipe and timing.

The bread smelled lovely as it was baking, and it was so hard to cool the loaves and then swaddle them in linen for two days. But it was worth the wait. Crumb is chewy, moist and fragrant, with a delightful nubbiness from the seeds. Crust is crunchy-chewy, although I'm not sure how long that will last. For me, this recipe is a keeper!

If you are looking for a quick and fool-proof method to create a starter that has a high concentration of lactic acid, check out Rus's CLAS procedures on YouTube and Blogger. Mind you though, the formula uses commercial yeast ("CY") to boost leavening power because CLAS is yeast-free.  If you're a hard-core purist who does not use CY,  this method is not for you.

Mixed Grain Sourdough

David Snyder

April, 2019

I found this at the well known German bread blog “Plötzblog”. These are little buns with a high rye content common to Southern Tyrol. This is my translation of the German recipe: https://www.ploetzblog.de/2019/03/23/vinschgauer-paarlen/

Typical for this author he uses very precise measurements and specific temperatures.

Levain:

Starter 16 g

Ryeflour (German type 997) 80g

Water 80 g @ 50°C

Salt 1.6 g

After David Snyder’s experiments with 40 hour retarded sourdough pan bread, Lucy thought she would try that out on the wife’s sandwich pan bread.  We didn’t know if the 11% sprouted flour used in the dough would somehow cause the dough to over ferment or over proof and not act like David’s with this one being 3% wetter as well.  But no worries, it turned out fine.

These little sandwich loaves are are made with pretty similar amounts of bread, WW and rye flours. They are just right to slice lengthwise, stuff with goodies and then cut in half for two good size sandwiches. Baking these pretty regularly lately.

Once the garden starts producing will be even more enjoyable stuff with fresh veggies.

Ken Forkish has a Pain au Bacon that I used to make a few years ago. My daughter mentioned that I hadn’t made any in quite a while so it was time to revisit adding bacon to bread and adding caramelized onions for good measure. 

The bacon was baked in the oven to make it easier since I was cooking 3 lbs of it! (4 batches of this recipe). ? 

After being persuaded by Ian for times, I finally gave in and made some caramelized onion for bread. In case you’re wondering, nope, he didn’t mention about the part about Jinhua ham and shiitake mushrooms :)

Jinhua Ham Shiitake Mushrooms Caramelized Onion SD

Dough flour (all freshly milled except pearl millet flour):

This is like the little black dress of cakes, although I think that technically it's more a quick bread than a cake. It's a French basic, typically taught by grandmothers to their grandkids. All measurements are done by volume, using a half-cup yogurt tub that is standard here. It's a nice change after you've cleaned up your bake and put the scales away.

Here's the basic recipe:

The dry

• 4 tubs flour*
• 2 tsp baking powder
• .5 tsp salt

The wet