Blog posts

An Ode to my Oven

Profile picture for user Stephanie Brim

I'm a simple girl.  My only requirement of my kitchen appliances and untensils is that they work, and work well, for the application I intend to use them.  This, among other things, is why I replaced the oven that came with this house as soon as financially possible.

2 nd try at Michel Suas Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread - Advanced Bread and Pastry

Toast

This week I tried Michel Suas' whole wheat sourdough bread for the second time.  I made four pounds of dough and divided it into 2 loaves (2 lbs each).  The leavening is an overnight levain.  After reading Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads I decided to take a little different approach and prior to mixing the levain into the final dough I mixed the whole wheat and bread flour (for the final dough) together and mixed in the water and let it stand for 5 hours.  It became very soft and creamy.  Then I when the levain was ready I mixed it into the final dough mixture and let

Norm's Onion Rolls Reduex!

Profile picture for user Eli

I made Norm's Onion Rolls back in April and wish I had posted them then. That bunch seemed to be a little more aesthetic. These were great tasting and Norm's Onion Rolls, along with Henry's Scones have made me quite popular with the neighborhood.

Burger with Norm' s Onion Roll and Mr. Stripey tomatoes! Delicious!!

New book (to me) The Bread Builders

Toast
I just got my used copy of this book which I had thought of sending to my son in Paso Robles as he is talking of building a clay oven. I thought maybe the brick oven would interest him, but having started to read it I may keep it. Fascinating book with lots of information, but I found one point that confuses me. The author claims that the internal temperature of a loaf should be at least 195*, though 200* is ideal. Then he goes on to say that bread baked to a higher temperature does not keep as well. Here I have been carefully baking to at least 205*! Who should I believe?

Rosh Hashanah Challah

Baking Challah is a weekly thing in my kitchen. I have blogged about it extensively. For the holidays I did something a little "special" inspired by a long ago post by Mariana (I think).

 Rosh Hashanah Challah (yud bet)
Rosh Hashanah Challah (yud bet)

Eliopsomo - Greek Olive Bread

A party with neighbors brought some new inspiration to bake something different. From the book "Savory Baking from the Mediterranean" (Anissa Helou) I picked the recipe for Eliopsomo, or Greek olive bread. The book does not specify baker's percentages or weights, but I used my Dough Calculator to compute those. The conversion for spinach, herbs and olives are guesses and probably not exactly what the author intended. Nevertheless, I doubled the recipe and made two loaves.