Blog posts

Is it still necessary to heat milk to avoid killing yeast?

And just when I thought I have to settle with toying between bread and all purpose flour ratio, I, happened to find this fantastic German Bread Flour Type 550 the other day at one of the bakery ingredients supply shop.

It's been over a month since I had a chance to post.  Between traveling to China for work and then going to NC for Thanksgiving time has been short.

Anyway, this bread was one I made after returning from China.  It ended up very tasty with a nice nutty flavor from the freshly milled Durum flour combined with the freshly milled whole rye flour.

I incorporated some rye and durum into the two build starter and added some bread flour for some added strength.

Lucy has been wanting to make this one since we ran across it while searching for pumpernickel bread recipes at about the same time another Fresh Loafian was asking about Latvian Bread recipes. 

We thought it an odd one since the recipe called for scalding apple cider and then adding it rye four with a bit of starter and leaving it covered to make the for 24 hours to make the levain. 

Just for a change of pace I thought that I'd try a riff on the Raisin-Pecan WW Levain that I've been baking, which are based on Ken's Artisan Bakery's gems.  A voyage not too far offshore to visit an Apple-Walnut WW Levain version.

I made some boiled dumplings (jiaozi) the other day to expand my repertoire and just to try something new. They are rustic, comforting and a really nice alternative to buns, noodles and rice. Read here for more information and how to make them from scratch. Baozi and siumai are my favorite Chinese snacks and these are a new addition to those. I like their simplicity compared to steamed dumplings and pot sticker, drop the into boiling water and when they float they're done.

carol field's puglese from the Italian baker, baked in a pot :)

I came across a recipe for "Pugliese Bread" years ago and used to bake 600 gram loaves due to the size of my kitchen oven. A few years ago I bought a bread oven that is able to handle larger loaves, and has holes on top which make it possible to use a pressure sprayer to produce steam and then be closed off. I recently started to bake 2+ kilo loaves and my friends love the results. I bake them for 85 minutes. This results in a very dark crust that crackles for 5 minutes after being taken out of the oven, and a very tender crumb.

. This is a shot of the wild rice and onion rolls I made for yesterday.

Mmm... that *time* of the year again when all the pumpkin recipes start poppin' up everywhere. I live in the lovely equatorial tropics, which means our pumpkins are of the green-and-white variety and we get them all year round (just without the carving). I believe that this recipe works for American pumpkins as well.