Blog posts

    This is another version of the Pain au levain I made a few weeks ago but I changed up the flours using some spelt and high gluten flour.  I made 1 batard with about half of the dough and 2 baguettes with the remainder.

I didn't include any photos of the baguettes this time since they are still a work in progress and even though it's almost Halloween I didn't want to scare everyone.  The crumb and taste was perfect but my scoring and the color was not pretty.

All I can say is, I am hooked.When I decided to make this bread I had so many worries in my head, Was my starter ready? could I Develop the dough? was I degassing it to much?

 Sadly, all the pictured I took of this bake were taken at the wrong steting resulting in files that were too large to upload - so we make do with a few crumb shots

After 3 weeks of white SD combinations to formulate a modern SFSD, Lucy has gone back to her darker side that she calls ‘Sweetness in Life’ we went back to exploring a 100% sprouted multi-grain bread.  100% sprouted breads are difficult to make and have then come out looking half decent…. without over fermenting and or over proofing.

The photo on the left is after I sliced off a 1/4" heel. The on on the right is a center slice.

Whilst I admire the skills of bakers to produce such a wide range of different breads I would venture to suggest that these breads should not form part of the daily diet.  By all means produce them for added pleasure.

Long time reader, first time poster.

I've made bread on and off for over forty years, from necessity in college, to fiscal sanity nowadays. My wife and I work from home, and when I bake during the day, she claims the aroma creates a "hostile work environment".

I read here on a post one day that a pain du campaign must be at least 10% rye flour. This is a mini boule really with just 300 grams total flour at 74% hydration, 10% each rye and whole wheat flours and strong bread flour for the rest. I used 50 g liquid levain and 7 grams salt. I shaped as a boule taking care to get a very tight skin and baked Forkish style, proofing seam side down and baking seam side up. Wonderful oven spring on this loaf. I am tempted to call it oven spring! The final loaf is about 51/2" in diameter and has bloomed to 5" in height!

SFBI style pain au levain at 80% hydration.

Not my style, and too lazy, I guess.  Earlier this week SteveB posted his magnificent 80% hydration pain au levain, which disappeared all too quickly from the current Bread Browser images.  I'd been making a few different versions, including my take on David Snyder's take on an SFBI pain au levain.

My first Hamelman rye bake.  Someone please explain why I waited so long to start baking Hamelman rye recipes.  This took much less time than a normal bread, with 90-minutes each of bulk and final rise, then into the oven.  I love the mild sweet sourness of the rye, complimented by my non-controversial addition of caraway seeds after shaping.  Next time I will autolyse the WW and bread flour since it didn't occur to me at the time.

Amaranth/sesame on left, bulgur on right. 

This week I decided to go back to my roots in bread baking by baking the Overnight Country Brown recipe out of FWSY.  Of course, I had to put in a few add ins. Two of the loaves got a total of 100 g of bulgur soaked in 100 g of water and the other two got 100 g of sprouted amaranth (24 hours) and 25 g of black sesame seeds. I added the add ins at the autolyse stage but otherwise followed the recipe as written in the book.