Blog posts

This week’s bake is my third try (in a row) at oat porridge bread. The results of the first two tries were good, but i’ve been trying to get the feel of the dough right. First time was way to wet and, second time was a bit too stiff, third time was just right!

The flour blend is also a bit different from last week, I went with a 70:30 split instead of 60:40 (thanks CedarMountain for the tip).

Formula:

My attempt at Poilâne-style bread, here's the recipe - Breadtopia's seemed reasonably authentic and reliable. My starter was rye and perhaps a bit more runny than it should have been but the dough proved nicely, sprang beautifully in the oven and cracked handsomely on top.

Delicious bread!  Thank you, Ian!

Making bread with durum flour, potatoes, and cheese - new experience to me!

We gone for a few days in Texas our daughter’s graduation from PA school at UTMB.  She did very well graduating with honors and awards so we rented a Jamaica beach house in Galveston to celebrate with her, family and friends – there were a dozen of us.

Okay, this was fun! Inspired by some of the suggestions on the 123 challenge (notably Mini Oven's question about using Coca Cola in bread), I decided to try something completely different. This is a 123 bread but, instead of using 100 grams of fresh 'sourdough' starter I made a poolish with 50 grams of root beer, 50 grams of bread flour and a pinch (1/16th tsp) of dry yeast. It looked and smelled nice. I used a 'natural' root beer without a lot of chemicals.

I mixed up some NMNF starter on 6/25/16. I thought I'd share some at a friend's July 4th cookout so I pulled some of the NMNF out, added more rye to make a thick dough and kneaded it in. Rolled it up, and wrapped in plastic wrap, ready to share my science project. There were no takers. Silly rabbits.

These dough balls, about the size of jumbo marbles, have been sitting in the refrigerator ever since. Wrapped in plastic, placed in a plastic container, and stored in a zip-loc baggie. Today, I thought I'd take one out for a spin and start Ru007 and Dani3ll3's oat bread.

I've been lurking for a while and this is my first blog post. Thanks for everyone for making this site great. I am an amateur and have been baking bread for a couple years. My daughters and I made a sourdough starter named Charlotte early on. I keep her on the counter and we feed her mostly everyday and she has been refrigerated once or twice for short periods. She goes on trips with us as well. She lives in Mississippi and has vacationed Tennessee, Missouri, Indiana and Illinois. 

Looking to shake things up just a little, I decided to change a bit from my recent Semolina with Rye Levain concoction.  Not a lot, just enough to see what would happen by altering that one thing.  And that one thing was to use 60% durum/40%AP flour in the final mix rather than 100% durum.  Otherwise all things remained the same.  Well, except that I actually did a 3 stage build this time.

Baguettes are 3x350g, Batard is 1x600g

This week’s bake is my second attempt at a SD with rolled oats. I tried similar loaf last week and  though it was a good loaf, i wanted to make some changes.

 Formula

I've noticed that my dining room is consistently 79°F this summer with the air conditioning on. What a great time to try making yeast water following dabrownman's Yeast Water Primer.

I bought my organic raisins and apples at the local foo-foo health nut store, mashed and cubed per instructions and will worry the mess to death for the next few days with shaking and fanning, honeying it up and feeding it more oranges than I would ordinarily eat myself.

Are bread heads out of their minds? :)

Murph