Blog posts

          Even before I was making "good" pizza dough, and perhaps even before I was born, we have had a family tradition of making Pizza on Sunday nights during the winter. The oven's heat is a welcome addition to the kitchen, and laughter and voices fill the kitchen as pies are loaded and removed from the oven. The quality of the pizza has improved a lot since I started making the crust though, all modesty aside!

Three days off in a row... a luxury after months of none or one at a time, you can imagine how much I was looking forward to them. We are just two at home, so bread gets baked, cooled, sliced and frozen, then used as needed. I looked in the freezer a week ago only to find it was nearly empty of bread. Good news for these hands!

Hello all, my first blog post here.

I've been baking bread from Ken Forkish's "Flour Water Salt Yeast" for over a year now, almost exclusively sticking with the basic yeast recipes. I'm going to start dabbling in leavens this week. 

This bread is a 50% rye and whole wheat literally ground right into the mixing bowl. Autolysed 30 min then added starter from  the fridge, a little sorghum syrup and salt. 3 S&F 15 min apart and let ferment 3.5 hours. Shaped and let proof 2 hours. Baked in a DO.Taste is good but could have been improved with the addition of seeds or nuts.

Next on the agenda is a side by side bake of Red Fife and Turkey Red to see if there is a difference. Just got the grain  yesterday.

Stu

Happened to be in the Bay Area after Christmas this year for a vacation, and was passing through Petaluma on a weekday, so decided to swing by Keith Giusto Bakery Supply, which is tucked into a corner of an industrial park in Petaluma.

I enjoyed making Injera so much that I thought I would try the Moroccan version. It is much lighter because it uses semolina and plain flour. I also added 3 tablespoons of toasted sesame seeds to the batter.

Moroccans have them with a melted butter and honey sauce or farm cheese. We had them for dinner with soft white cheese and grape tomatoes. This morning we grilled them ever so lightly and had them like pancakes, with maple syrup, cinnamon and lemon. Delicious.

This recipe is for those of you who are experimenting with adding porridges to your dough. You can substitute most any grain into the porridge with good results. The recipe follows the now standard Robertson/Forkish formula for closed vessel baking. The result is a nice, moist and chewy crumb with a solid crust.

Semolina Porridge Bread

Makes 2 loaves of about 1 Kg each

Refresh natural starter at 100% hydration to yield at least 200 gm ( I use 100 gm flour, 100 gm slightly warm water and 30 gm starter)

Those are quickly made and my family loves them , so do I :)

500g strong bread flour

150ml milk

150ml hot water  * just boiled *

100g soft butter * NOT melted * cut into small cubes

1 egg

1 ½ tsp salt

1tsp sugar

2tsp dry yeast

2tsp vanilla extract

Put all your dry ingredients in the bowl of your Stand Mixer with the dough hook attached

Give them a quick mix with the dough hook.

Let the Stand Mixer run on the lowest setting * for me it is 1 on my KMix *