Blog posts

I love porridge breads.  They are so moist and flavorful I never tire of making or eating them.

I tried something a little different for this one by using Greek yogurt in place of part of the water in making the porridge.  I think it just added an extra layer of flavor and was worth trying.

I also used beer as part of the liquid in the main dough.  This one was extra hydrated and was a little challenging to shape the next day.  Next time I would shape it right out of the refrigerator instead of letting it sit out for an hour.

Love to bake bread! looking for tips to market my product.

I made two videos for the cherry blossom cake roll. Hope they are helpful.

I made these three videos in great details. Hope they are helpful.

While staying at Island of Hvar in middle Dalmatia I got inspired by big fields of lavender to give a try to a lavender bread. Right now there is a crop of lavender going on and when you pass such field the smell of lavender is simply amazing. Island of Hvar is known to be the island with most sunny days in whole Dalmatia what provides a very good natural conditions for growing lavender, wine and olive trees.

Country Bread - yeast activated at 72F, 100F, and 130F (left to right) - July 8, 2017

The inspiration for this one came from Lechem's loaf. I did very minimal changes to it. Basically, I only changed the amount of levain to accommodate my 80% levain.

Recipe:

1. Toast 40 g pecans.

2. Soak 50 g cranberries in 30 g water.

3. Autolyse all above with 335 g unbleached flour, 80 g fresh milled Selkirk wheat, 262 g water, and 18 g orange blossom water.

4. Mix in 10 g seal salt and 117 g of 80% levain.

I took my inspiration for this loaf here. I changed it slightly and used my usual way of making bread but I was not aware that cinnamon impeded the yeast action! My bulk rise took 9 hours at cool room temperature! I never did get the dough to double but it rose to about half again the original volume. After shaping and putting it in bannetons, I let the loaves rise for an hour on the counter before putting them in the fridge for the night.

After many months being so busy finally the time of holidays/vacations arrived. Again this year we (my wife, our dog and me) are having great time on Island of Hvar in middle Dalmatia in the Adriatic Sea.

In my blog last week I mentioned that I had the levains all ready to go and was frightfully confident that the dough would be cooperative with my intention of a relaxing mix day...

Well - the weather decided to go in to random mode, and we had storm fronts rolling in from all directions fighting with high pressure fronts that thought we should be clear and sunny instead.  It's a lousy shot (I'm a lousy photographer), but here's one of the cloud fronts traveling by: