Blog posts

Modern baking with commercial cultivars of wheat, blended flours, thermostat controlled ovens, and particularly commercial yeast is predictable. Yes, it takes skill, and there is always something to learn that will make the product better, but it is predicable. 

I have been grinding my own flour for a few years now, and every time I try new kinds of grain or new blends of grain, I have increased respect for the bakers of 500 or a thousand years ago.

Here, in Romania, we're making some bundles of enriched and fragrant dough filled with goodies - walnut+sugar+cocoa+rum; Turkish delight; raisins - sometimes all of them, and called them "cozonac". Our cozonac is more like a babka that a panettone, more like a brioche stuffed with precious sweet things. 

After years of stopping making cozonac with commercial yeast, I've decided to give it another try with sourdough instead. It took two days (night not counting) from start to finish and it's a joy, a pride, and a treat. A winner. 

A Portuguese classic... 

This turned out great! The pastry really was not hard to make. I ran the oven at 500F with convection, and I baked on 2nd rack from the top, which gave me some nice blistering of the custard. My one 1 improvement for next time: ensure the sugar syrup tastes to cinnamon.

Recipe from Food Wishes: https://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2018/11/portuguese-custard-tarts-hieronymites.html

I wanted to see how far I could push bulk fermentation and with this bake I probably went a bit far.  I’ve baked this bread before which is in total 50% whole grains but I’ve never pushed the hydration to 83% which I did for this bake.  I also used my aliquot jar and shaped once it showed that the dough had risen 50%.  Given the lack of oven spring, I think for my skill set, 83% hydration and 50% rise made the resultant dough a bit too loose to shape tightly and attain better oven spring.  I’ll post photos of the crumb when I slice it tomorrow.

Hey bakers,

Today I made a video of how I usually shape a sourdough boule. This is a really easy method for me, as it's very similar to the "Stretch and Fold" process. The video is included below for anyone who wants to see it!

Happy baking,

Grant

since before Christmas.  You know how it is, down in the bottom of the fridge hidding between the spuds and onions.  Na ya, keep or toss?  Opened the bag and removed the top inch of kraut.  Hmmm, about a cup of nice juice and great smelling sauerkraut in there.  Put it into glass added a little water and sprinkled several heaping soupspoonfuls of white wheat on top.  Stirred in making a milky lumpy thin batter.  Covered and came bake later to notice nothing going on.  Next day nothing.  Ah, waking up the sleepy beasties.

My starter was very cooperative for ages, but recently has changed personalities. It used to reach max height in around 12 hours and float for another 4-5 hours, regularly. That was with a 1:2:2 feeding. Now, it rises and begins to deflate within 6 hours, even with a 1:3:3 feeding. Moreover, it only floats for a minute at most before sinking. Has anyone else had this experience? And what did you do? I am beginning to suspect that the air in my kitchen may be bad, which fills me with dread.

Thanks.

Once again using my favourite sourdough pizza dough recipe that was written by Will the Pie King and shared during the Community Bake, I made a Marinated Artichoke and Olive sourdough pizza.  Actually I made two 9-10” pizzas tonight and will make another two tomorrow.  In the past I have usually cold retarded them for 48 and 72 hours.  This time I wanted to see what would happen if I cold retarded for 72 and 96 hours.  Well tonight of course was the 72 hours and the dough performed as expected, very well.

It's been a while since I posted.  I have been baking but just have not had the patience to post.  I made this bake about a month ago.  I finally got around to sprouting some grains and did some whole wheat from Barton Mills and some purple corn which both were ground into flour using my Mock Mill 200.  I also ground some black barley into flour and added that as well for some extra flavor.

I added some caramelized onions which are always one of my favorites.