Blog posts

I have been able to make time for baking recently, but not so much for other things like keeping up with my bread blog.  During the silence I've been pushing myself to higher and higher hydration levels on my straight sourdough bread formula, testing my own limits in handling high (to me anyway) hydration doughs, and learning about how it affects the finished loaf.  I think I've learned a lot, but the most important lesson has been:  I still have a lot to learn!

Pat, who has is enduring earthquakes, tsunami warnings and, worst of all, no access to bread baking this week shared with us the thought that having some bread to critique might lift her spirits. What better bread than that made from her own baguette formula?

Time for my semi-annual birthday cake update, right? This year's cake for my son was LEGO themed!

I guess I never posted last years cake -my son was super-into his Mad Magazine Spy-vs.-Spy comics and asked for this theme on his cake. I was really busy with planning the event which was at a roller skating rink, so the only thing I really did was to buy a plain undecorated sheet cake and decorate it to make it match.

Grissini are pencil-thick bread sticks, 14 to 16-inches long, and easily made in a few hours.  The dough is mixed, bulk fermented for an hour, then divided, rolled, and baked at 380F.

I tweaked Jeffrey Hamelman’s formula from Bread by using garlic infused olive oil and adding two ounces of freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. 

So, I happen to have a lot of rye flour, because of a communication problem when placing my order :-/

I usually add a small percentage of rye to my flour mix, but now I'm forced to try 100% rye loaves in every bake.

This week rye loaf was loosely based on Dan Lepard's 100% rye bread from "The Art Of Handmade Bread",

I soaked 50 gr of wheat berries in a bottle (330 ml) of Guinness Special Export overnight, and then boiled them for 45' on a very low heat, till the berries were tender.

Beat in 65 gr of rye flour and let it cool.

Butterkuchen is a classic German cake that you can find in any German bakery, often eaten in afternoon with a cup of coffee. Whenever I feel homesick here in the American diaspora or get invited over to a German friend's house for Kaffee und Kuchen I bring a Butterkuchen. A sheetcake full of butter and topped with sugar it can often be dry. But this recipe makes a quick and delicously moist cake.

400g flour

1 tsp salt

100 g sugar (or more depending on your taste)

2-3 packages of vanilla sugar

225 g butter

125 ml milk

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/painauxraisins

Followed the recipe above from Floyd,  I had a lot of fun doing this, especially the shaping of the dough.  Somehow the 1st method of shaping caused the middle to rise more than it should, perhaps I shaped it too tightly.

The 2nd with raisins,  I think I put too much raisins,  all the raisins started to spill out.  

So,this is off topic and I am somewhat sorry.  I've hit baking deprivation in a big way (which is demonstrated by the fact that I just bought a cute little pullman pan with the rationale that I have already committed to having to ship a few things from the Ryukyu to home and that I've never seen one that size in the US) and I'm only one month in.  Sigh.

But, yesterday my wakeup call was the shaking of the earth and the tsunami warnings.  This is not my favorite way to wake up.  But I figured that the weekend's excitement was over.

So I worked my first eight hour shift today, and I had some difficulties, learned some interesting things, and in general came home smiling. The two main things that I learned deal with double hydration and venting an oven. When I was first shown oven venting, my eyes were pretty glazed over; I'd never heard of venting, and pretty much didn't know what it was, why you might do it, and in general was confused. A few days later (today, as it were) it was explained to me. Venting is, as its definition implies, removing air, or things in the air, from a space.

Hey All,

Just wanted to share with you my attempts at Dan Leader's Pane Casereccio di Genzano from Local Breads, and my version of Muesli Bread.  Enjoy!

Tim