Blog posts

Looking at my picture, I am realizing that my boules are starting to look all the same! I am going to have to start practicing different scoring patterns for variation.

Hello! I'm new here, but I've been reading TFL for months as I learn how to make good (and fix not-as-good) sourdough. I've been tinkering with everyday wheat breads for a while, and have something that works reliably now. As an old Free Software hand, I know that the best way to get better from here is to give back to the community.

Time for a nice grilling and sandwich style bread.  This one is fairly simple for my twisted mind...fresh milled Durum flour, Caputo 00 flour, AP flour in the levain and olive oil.  I also used some white sesame seeds and smoked sesame seeds for the topping.

I used some Durum flour in the levain as well with the AP flour.  I think the extra Durum really brought out the nutty flavor this style of flour brings to the party.

Satisfying to get a good result on my latest take 6. Takes 4 and 5 were over proofed with my new summer kitchen temperatures. All winter and spring my kitchen was a steady 68F Now that we have real summer it is running 73-75F and BOY does this temperature change mess with bulk rise and proofing schedules!

Still using the SFSD recipe from Crust and Crumb. Last week we went to the farmer's market and as we were passing by a bakery stall my daughter and her husband spied the olive bread. "We want olive bread!"Not being a real fan of olives unless it's in pizza or lasagna, I hadn't really considered making it.

With whole bunch of dark chocolate chunks, homemade orange peel and mango!

Alright, so I made another sourdough and this time, the dough was well proved and I just gave the clay pot another trial run. And because everything went well today, the loaf came out as somewhat ideal, at least to my expectation. 

Been lacking behind posting but not baking. All breads from Jeffrey Hamelman's book, "Bread"

1. Norwich sourdough with increased whole wheat (wheat only) with added oat groats and honey - very happy with oven spring

2. Norwich sourdough with increased whole wheat (mixture of rye and wheat) - not very happy with oven spring

3. Norwich sourdough with increased whole wheat (wheat only) using a dutch oven - not very happy with oven spring

Recently I began to try out a rye levain breads, and having leftover rye starter I figured I'd continue on that riff.  I cleave off a bit at a time from the remaining rye starter ball and still have a few bakes left in the slowly diminishing ball.  For the liquid levain, I used a recently refreshed stiff levain stater.