Blog posts

When I heard about breads made with spent grains - leftovers from beer brewing - I was fascinated.

How interesting! But, where on earth, could you come by those mashed grains, unless you worked at a brewery? We have two micro-breweries in Bar Harbor, so I left a message, asking whether I could purchase a small amount of their spent grains.

The sobering answer: the mash goes to the (dogs) hogs. All sold to pig farms - sorry!

My first post is to say thank you to all the contributors on this site. I have learned a great deal about sourdough since I started out a good few months ago. I have eventually managed to bake a few loaves that have the taste and texture we like. The next effort is to make the loaves look pretty *wipe brow*.

I've made bread with sweet potatoes before, but I have to say this is my best one yet.  Moist and flavorful there's not much to complain about on this one.

I used a combo of freshly ground flours as well as Caputo 00 type flour.  The cottage cheese, eggs and roasted sweet potatoes created a moist and flavorful bread.

Note: Water content of whole eggs is 80 grams, Cottage Cheese 81 grams, Sweet Potatoes 145 grams for a total of 306 grams.  This was not included in the formula so the hydration of this bread is much higher than listed.

My timing was out, had to shape when I should have been cooking dinner so no cross!  

Used Hamelman's recipe from bread, scaled to give 20 buns at about 80 gms.  ready to proof.

The only changes were to replace peel with cranberries and similar amount of raisins, reducing currants a little and my own spice mix (don't remember where I found this recipe)

very yummy recipe!

Leslie

This recipe is our favorite cupcake but we made it as a cocktail loaf thinking maybe the Baby or Baby Girl would take one of them into work to spread the sugar around.  The recipe can be found here

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/38172/banana-bread

My obsession with mushroom bread began a little over a year ago when I was gifted Nancy Silverton’s “Breads From the La Brea Bakery”. While her books were personal and groundbreaking for their time, I do have one bone to pick: the measurements! Nancy’s recipes are expressed in tablespoons and cups, pounds and ounces, perfect for the American home cook (particularly at the time they were published), but maddening for the professional baker (and today, novice bakers too!) who is used to measuring everything in grams and kilos.

What do you know, I had some butter, milk and yeast in the house. Seize the moment and make some Hefeblätterteighörnchen. 

I believe there is a subtle difference between Hefeblätterteighörnchen and Croissants, honestly I don't really care too much, or better, my baking skills are not sophisticated enough to care. At this stage of my adventure into baking I am happy things taste reasonably well.

In any case, it turned out all right SWMBO approved. Can't complain too much about that.

The volunteer daisy's and red romain always come up next to each ither each year!

2017

 1/6/2017 - 26 % Whole Sprouted 9 Grain Brioche Buns

1/6/2017 - New Year’s Pizza a Few Days Late

I love my combo starter! It is a blend of Duluth's Best Bread (Michaellily), JamieOF and mine. The thing doubles in 2 hours and triples in four when I do my final levain build. The boules are full and have almost a balloon quality when I take them out of the fridge to bake.

This week, I think the boules actually hit the lids of the Dutch ovens because they are a bit flat on top. The loaves feel really light so I think the crumb should be pretty good.