Blog posts

At the urging of my wife, I recently started breaking out of my weekly bake of FWSY boules in the combo-cooker. My first baguettes were a disaster. One was actually vaguely obscene. While working up the courage to have another go, I tried a couple of batards (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/41526/intro-and-todays-bake) which came out pretty well and gave me more confidence in my ability to generate enough steam.

As the winter season is still in full swing up north I thought it'd be appropriate to post an old school pain d' epice or as it's better known gingerbread. This recipe was inspired by Pierre Herme's Alsatian specialty and is quite similar to his creation in format as well as yield. I've adapted some of the proportions and ingredients to better suit a North American product. I would also like to note that spices in the recipe are variable to the baker's taste and should absolutely be adjusted if you see fit.

This Batard i made without any fresh or instant yeast. After an autolyse of half an hour I mixed everything by hand and kneaded it till it was nice and firm. Then I let it rest for two hours during stretchs and folds every half an hour before I two batards and put them in the fridge (ca 10°C) for 18 hours.

590 g Flour
380 g Water

- Autolyse

120 g Sourdough (100% hydration)
14 g Salt

67 % Hydration, 9 % leavening

Did I mention how much I love making sourdough? Its very frexibly, you can fix it around you schedule and it is quite quick. Yes, I said quick - not like 5 minutes quick, but it is possible to have a tasty sourdoung mixed and made in a single day,

I came up with a lovely honey and oat sourdough recipe which toasts incredibly well is delicious with lashings of butter and a drizzle of honey.

Full recipe on my blog here my blog here

This is the recipe from Josey Baker Bread seed loaf. I followed The recipe almost to the 'T' Save for swapping some different seeds to what i have in my pantry and increased SD to 20g instead of 15g as i wanted a shorter preferment time (6 hours on a very hot day at 32C instead of his recommended 8-12 hours).

Haven't been posting for quite sometime, due to some technical problem with my computer which doesn't display pages properly. Hopefully it gets better with Firefox. 

After reading David post on mixed seeded loaf, I decided to go back to BREAD and bake along. This week I have baked multigrain levain. I have followed the formula to the spot apart from hydration, I up it to 80%+ as the dough felt a little dry when I mixed it. For soaker, I used barley flakes, wheat flakes, oat flakes, flaxseeds, sesame seeds and corn meal. 

This is perhaps one of if not the CRAZIEST idea to make bread. I don’t know what struck me to think of this but it worked! I just posted my most decent lean bread that I made a few days ago yesterday with good results but I want the top crust to be crisp just like oven baked bread so I made another experiment.

1/1/2015 - New Years Eve Pizza

1/2/2015 - 50 % Whole Grain Sprouted 8 Grain SD/YW with Japanese Black Rice & Seeds

1/9/2015 - 50 Percent Whole Sprouted 16 Grain SD with Lake Havasu Desert Magic IPA

The last 12 hours has been one of those days. When I mixed up my final dough last night it just seemed wrong. I ran all the numbers and it shouldnt have felt like it did. I had to add flour, but I shouldnt have. Then in all the cleaning and getting the kids to bed I forgot about the dough. Woke up at 430 in the morning realizing I left the dough sitting on the table all night. Fear set in that it would be over-proofed and I wouldnt be able to save it. I went down half asleep, scaled and shaped the loafs. Put them into the brotforms and went back to bed.