Blog posts

It’s been a while since some strong-flavoured bread came out from my oven. I decided it’s the time for the comeback of my most-loved bread type.

Smoked Chipotle Onion and Parmesan Sourdough

Dough flour (all freshly milled):

120g     40%       Whole white wheat flour

90g       30%       Whole spelt flour

A week or so ago Ru posted her seeded sourdough, and I felt inspired to give the recipe a try.

The recipe is unusual for me in that with the sole exception of nine grams of salt there are no additional ingredients on the second day.  No more flour.  Not even any new water.

At 90% hydration, dough was quite tacky to shape. I thought it was well fermented and expected some elasticity but no such luck.... scoring was ok but couldn’t go deep at all. Quite disappointed to see a muffin top but the crumb was so nice... perfect for my 88 year old mom’s weak teeth. It was very soft and spongy like.  I incorporated natto and black sesame seeds at the second stretch and fold and did lamination expecting huge holes...

Lucy loves Haiku and between bakes she thinks up some good ones.   Between bakes I thought we should all give it a try and see if our bread improves.

Just add them on here as comments.  Here is Lucy's first shot and then mine but there will be more as time allows.

Don Baggs makes baguettes

Out of any recipe

 Turns dough into sticks

And mine

Pumpernickel airs

Wafting through the bakery

So few friends remain

This bake was quite a change in method for me.  Normally I mix, bulk ferment and shape during the day, cold retard overnight and bake first thing in the morning.  This time I started late in the day. 

Using a recipe posted in 2013 by d_a_kelly for Panettone a tre impasti in June. My adaptation was to use mango yeast water as the water to build the first impasto and then a small amount ( 5gr) of stiff rye starter in the second dough build. 

I'm constantly frustrated by any amount of left over starter. It seems so wasteful. So most of the time I simply place whatever's leftover into the jar with the rest of Charlie - my loyal starter.

This weekend I made a solstice sun twirl bread and had way too much starter left over. I had originally planed to make some other bread but our weekend plans changed and I knew I wouldn't have the time to properly deal with it. So I thought about using the starter as a biga of sorts.

Re-visited Forkish's Saturday White recipe today after a slightly disappointing attempt yesterday. The following chart shows my ingredients, process, and an interpretation of the given instructions (with alterations due to limitations in gear, as I don't yet have bannetons):

As I baked the first loaf, the second was in its proofing bowl in the fridge. The first loaf:

knowing that you are dying to find out what it will look like inside and the love that goes into making it!  Kat