Blog posts

The skiing has been fantastic and I am down to one bake a week for three weeks running now. This is the third go around of my yeast water pulla/babka dough. Again another take on the ITJB yummies! I actually have a store bought loaf of bread because it was free. We will see. This loaf was filled with a mix of walnuts and hazelnuts on top of a chocolate buttercream. OH MY! 

Nothing fancy, but I baked a few days ago.  First time in quite a while.  

Overnight poolish, slow rise of the final dough the next day, not a scale or measuring cup in sight. 

Not one of my best efforts but, all things considered, still quite good.

I hope folks here are having a wonderful spring.

Attemtped some Ciabatta, this time not such a bold bake was requested by the sainted Wife.

[URL=http://s1292.photobucket.com/user/Steelhead503/media/Baking/41714Bake1_zps793a2051.jpg.html][/URL]

About a month ago I began my quest of making Brötchen (German bread rolls). There was a demand in town for such rolls and I had to fulfill it. I mean, I had to. I'm opening a German-ish bakery albeit in Cambodia. And a German bakery without Brötchen is like a poem without words.

With cracked rye soaker (ground in coffee grinder) instead of cracked wheat. This recipe is very similar to Glezer's, but with addition of some IDY and a shorter fermentation time. I think I prefer her's since the all-levain dough has a deeper flavor, which helps such a subtle loaf. A hint to anyone trying this recipe: do the folds with wet hands rather than dipping in flour. This is sticky dough and you don't want to make it dry.

These buns were a make it up as you go along effort. I was still deciding on the numbers with the mixer running, working the dough I had thus far and I liberally added spices in the style of a well seasoned chef.

This really should have been waited till Easter monday, Since I have been craving for it for soooo long, so who cares.

I have used the formula posted by Rossnroller . The only Changes Ive made to his formula is reduced the sugar to 30g instead of 40g and used a 50% wholewheat starter which push the wholegrain to 22%. 

Ive also added a 30min Autolyse and added salt right before the second knead. 

Every year before Easter, our church's baking guild will gather a group of volunteers, bake Hot Cross buns, and sell them as a Church fund raiser.  This year we baked 60 dozen buns over a 2 day period. We used the recipe from Hammelman's Bread mixing 4 dozen at a time. We nicknamed the volunteers, most who are not bakers, the holy rollers.    It is a great way to have some fun together as well as introducing folks to what baking is about. 

  I love potatoes in my bread and rolls so I figured it was time to try them in pretzel rolls.  I had to make this recipe twice as the first time I didn't compensate enough for the moisture in the potatoes and the dough was way too hydrated.  The rolls didn't come out the right consistency so I made them again and cut the water back and they came out perfect.

We try to bake some kind of gefilta fish based loosely on Wolfgang Pucks Passover recipe here.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/passover-gefilte-fish-recipe.html

 Last year’s was tilapia, with various Mexican green chilies wrapped in collard greens and set into cabbage to look like little cabbages that were covered in fish stock and veggies.  We made 6 large ones and they were terrific here