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Delish…so yummy and wonderful for winter.

Perfect for the cold!!

I've put myself to the test.  I plan to summon 10 loaves of my own at home, freshly baked, every Saturday Morning, to bring to my local farmer's market as trade. This is week one for me.  As some already know I am a full time professional baker and believe it or not the last thing I want to do on the weekend  is bake. Actually as I've aged I prefer to cook opposed to bake on my free time.  I used to bake at home endlessly but with a full time job doing such that teetered off.  I'm back.

I'm sure other people have reviewed this, but I'm so pleased with this product I had to create a post.  I cultivated my own sourdough starter about 4 years ago.  I don't know if it's because I'm in suburban Denver (6000 ft) or what, but I could NEVER coax any flavor out of my breads.  2, 3 day retards, maybe a little...definitely nothing like california breads. In fact, I could really not tell the difference between my SD breads and straight breads.  Even poolish were better.

With Memorial Day neigh, we needed some hot dog buns for some sausages and brats we will start the weekend off with tonight for dinner.   Who better to come up with a recipe for them than none other than our resident Hot Dog and my German baking Apprentice - Lucy!

After Evon’s post of her bread with Japanese Black Rice in it, we knew it had to get to the top pf the bake list like Hanseata’s Wild Rice bread did when it appeared.  We had run across some of this rice a couple of months ago at Sprouts and had cooked it for dinner.  We knew it would end up in bread eventually and Evon’s post was the impetus.

At the moment I am pursuing two totally different themes in my baking: Gluten Free bread and bread for a school summer fair themed "Treasure Island".

This blog post is intended as a journal for my thoughts and ideas, nothing is final yet.

The photo above is my take on "Pease Bread", the 18th century wheat-free alternative. See below.

Let's start with Gluten Free (GF) bread:

It was late.   I had three breads to prepare for.   This meant two starters, two soakers and a biga.   My eyes drooped.   I was almost done - once I made the second soaker, and then the biga, I could go to sleep.   Yet something was wrong and I didn't know what.   I looked down.   Instead of holding a bag of whole wheat flour, I was holding a bag of whole rye flour.  And I had already made the biga and the soaker for whole wheat sandwich bread with rye instead of wheat.   No rest for the weary.

I always meant to try Reinhart's Pain à l'Ancienne, and today was the big day.  This was an easy formula and process.

I used a hydration of 70%, whereas Reinhart recommends a value somewhere in the range 70-88%. I diverged slightly from his instructions in a couple of places. 

It's Memorial Day this weekend believe it or not.  Doesn't feel like it's almost June, but it is certainly time to grill some hot dogs and hamburgers.  I hate using store-bought rolls since I know I can make ones myself that are far superior.

 Ever since I baked my first "Pillow Bread" last month I've been wanting to try baking this again with some modifications.  I wanted to use a 24 hour bulk retardation instead of baking it on the same day and I wanted to add some onions as well.

I also decided to use some of my apple yeast water in the levain and in the final dough but not as a rising agent.  Instead I  just to add some extra flavor and soften the crumb.

I also changed up the flour combination a bit using some Spelt flour in place of some of the Kamut flour and also in the levain.