Blog posts

Because of competing, food related commitments I chose to merely replace my refrigerated starter this weekend, in lieu of both replacing and baking. However, returning home from the home brewing club meeting last night, and having replaced my saved starter, I had some good looking ripe levain left over. Reluctant to throw it out, I refreshed it, and went to bed with no clear plan what to bake today, but a head-full of ideas, and yet another competing food chore too.

Just to prove that I still do actually bake -- here's a sourdough-only version of PR's whole wheat sandwich bread from WGB. Instead of using yeast, I let the sourdough take over. The initial fermentation was 4.5 hours, the final banneton proofing was 3 hours.

And let me just say I really, really, like the Brod & Taylor proofer. 

I'm bumping about the crumbled abode, not quite myself, unpacking my suitcase, doing piles of laundry, and sorting through my Europain swag.  I try to be restrained on this, because I won't check baggage and a week long trip does fill up the carry-on.

Those of you who followed my exploits at IBIE will be pleased to note that I got a plastic scraper from Caplain - a company that markets small scale bakery machinery including (and this is so exciting) a table top, hand cranked sheeter.   Now that would fit in my house.  How cool is that!

Hello,
Browsing through an old baking text (Professional Baking by Mr. Wayne Gisslen), I was so happy to find a gingerbread formula with a pain d’épices variation – which included 50% rye flour (!).
This bake is for MC, who kindly gave me some beautiful Fairhaven whole rye flour, which I used in this bread :^)

Today 11 March is the first anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster. On the island I live on people gathered at a beach this morning in remembrance. Our beaches were closed by the tsunami warnings last year and of course there have been a series of major earthquakes in Christchurch - we identify with the people of Japan.

Hello,

Here was some rolls I made today.   I started with a poolish because I did not want any sour at all, and dumped a bunch of real sugar, honey, butter and milk into it.    Came out great, and these are very tasty.

The recipe I did:

Poolish:

140 grams whole-grain flour mix (I did a mixture of WW + rye)
167 grams white bread flour
338 grams whole milk
0.6 grams instant yeast

Final Dough:

Country Loaf with Mixed Grains & Seeds

This pound cake or tea cake with truly worth making.

http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2012/03/black-sesame-pear-tea-cake

This is the time of year when I adjust, test, convert and create reicpes and formuale. I have no doubt that many cookbook authors lurk these pages, and this rant is, respectfully aimed at you or your publishers, or both.

We all know that scaling ingredients is the way to go, yet most books, and internet recipes etc. insist on providing volume measurements. Some might say this is old... The topic of weight of flour has been discussed ad nauseum here and many other places. Knowing what a cup of flour SHOULD weigh in no way helps in converting recipes.