Blog posts

Following the KAF sourdough pretzel recipe, combined with the two minute baking soda bath recommended in their regular soft flour pretzel recipe, in order to get the golden brown finish.

They came out nice -- although I baked them at a higher temperature since the oven was already at 450 for my Tartine loaf that I had baked.  I lowered the temperature but did not wait for the temperature to lower before putting the pretzels in the oven.

I had a wonderful dinner at Bar Tartine in San Francisco last week. I knew they were doing things with koji and tried a steak tartare served on koji toast but there were so many flavors going on I couldn’t really focus on the koji.

I used the most basic formula,

250 G Bread Flour

750 G WW Flour

800 G Water

22 G Salt

3 G Yeast

After mixing it I gave it 3 S&F, and it hold it shape pretty well. Im gonna increase the hydration to 85% to see if it will give me a better crumb. 

BTW This is my first time to get an ear.

Heres the crumb Shot

Following Txfarmer WW sourdough Bagels formula apart from I did a room temp proof rather than a 12hrs retardation.

It gives a nice chewy crumb n crispy crust. But my shaping is a bit doggy. Heres a crumb shot. 

Another Disastrous Bake

Last weekend I misread the book, I ended up with a sluggish layered tartine. 

This week I remember to cut in the add-in, but I ended up with a flat disc. I took a few pic during the process hopefully that could help in spotting the issues.

I am pretty sure I have overproof it as I have warm it up on counter, it expanded quite a bit, shaping isnt the best as it didnt hold its shape. Could it be possible that my first bulk isnt at the right timing as well?

After mixing and before bulk fermentation 

Warning: This post may contain information and language which may be opinionated, sarcastic, or darkly humorous. It is not intended to offend, it is intended to portray my own personal way of looking at and doing things.

I did my research for this one, and yes, I did have a recipe, although as it turned out, it was a recipe that I already had, ingredient for ingredient, amount for amount. Both are traditional fried breads, the difference occurs with how the dough is prepared prior to being fried.

Hello Guys, 

Here's a bread that I made a couple of days ago and I thought I'd share it with you. Im just going to jump into the recipe. 

The following are the ingredients I used:

- 200 g bread flour.

- 120 g room temp water (60% hydration)

- 1/2 tsp instant yeast

- 1/4 cup greek yogurt 

- 4 g salt 

- 3 g sugar (optinal) 

- 1 1/2 tbsp olive oil.

to share with  family and friends. Two traditional: Welsh Cakes, and Date-nut Pinwheels, and two newer: Chocolate-Chocolate chip-Chipotle-Hazelnut and Ameretta-Almond Biscotti. Thirty dozen total.

Happy Holidays to all,

David G

This is a continuation of my spelt brioche experimentation.  This time I used 50% AP flour, 50% spelt flour, 50% unsalted butter, 32% eggs, 20% yogurt, 16% palm sugar/sucanat mixture, 2.5% salt, and a little instant dry yeast.  I prefermented 20% of the flour in a liquid levain at 100% hydration using my rye SD starter.  I am pretty happy with the result.  It's a tangy bread due to the yogurt and liquid levain.  I think next time I can up the sugar level...  My total dough weight was approx 1200g, divivided between two 4.5" cube pullman pans.  The dough on

Holy oven spring Batman! This was essentially the same as my last pulla bake but used only YW levain to leaven the loaf. I also used only 30% bread flour and 70% AP. The dough felt quite a bit more extensible than just using strong bread flour. Yeast water makes for some mighty tasty pulla and sweet dough and the loaf volumes are truly astonishing to me!

I once again brushed on an egg glaze and sprinkled liberally with sugar, ground almond and chopped slivered almonds.