Blog posts

It's amazing how far your confidence can plummet after baking a whole string of inedible sourdough frisbees. Necessity (and hunger) got the better of me, so this week I switched back to a hybrid recipe that's always worked well.

405g flour

20g oat bran

300g tepid water

9g salt

4g dried active yeast

45g rye starter

Tablespoon vegetable oil (I use rape seed oil)

I am reminded of my favorite mythical philosopher; Yoda, who said ‘Try Not! Do or do not.  There is no try!  Yesterday was a day to try men’s souls – if there were any men. or women, left in the world.

The Fed was supposed to raise interest rates a lousy quarter point from and eighth of a point where it has been for 7 years as the entire world melted down because a few people couldn’t pay their mortgages back to the banks in the USA.

For a long time, I've been trying to create breads (lean and enriched) that should look like society's ideals; dark crackly singing // delicate crust, blooming scores, holey // feathery soft crumb; those are some of the hallmarks of  great loaves achieved with the help of an oven. No matter how hard I tried, it won't be just the same and won't be enough to reach those standards for many. It's like that weeny teen spending hours in the gym to earn his six pack to be considered hot/in/cool/popular.

I don’t make white bread; I've made something worst: brioche made with all-purpose flour and butter. “Everything tastes better with butter.” There is no shame in that, for some occasional guilty pleasure.

The best part of making brioche is in the making. I’ve made four versions of brioche over the last few months:

• Tartine brioche with natural leaven 

(http://flourishen.blogspot.com/2014/09/tartine-brioche.html)

• Tartine brioche with olive oil

This recipe makes 1 loaf.

For the leaven

• 1 tbsp mature starter
• 80g wholemeal flour
• 20g white flour
• 100g water

For the dough

Wishing all you bakers out there a healthy and sweet New Year. This year for Rosh Hashanah I made Maggie Glezer's Pan de Calabaza. This recipe is in her book "A Blessing of Bread" which is so interesting. It tells the back stories (and  the formulas, of course) for all kinds of traditional Jewish breads from all over the world. There's babkas, pita, challahs, Lithuanian, Greek and Ethiopian breads. If you're looking for the Pan de Calabaza formula, it's been posted at least twice on this site.

Hi everyone,

I've been lurking for a very long time, and have desperately been looking for a challah that is both moist but firm, a rich color and heavy fragrance with a tenderness that lasts into the day after I've baked it. I've loved reading many of the tips and recipes that I've come across on here, and using all of your help, I think I've found a great recipe. I used it for my Rosh Hashanah loaves this year, and didn't think to take any pictures, but will do so when I make this bread again for this coming Friday.

After a two month break, I finally am baking again.  

This summer was hectic. I've been working a ton, plus there was a two week road trip around BC and western Alberta, including a few days exploring Banff and Jasper.  Truly a stunning area.  One highlight of being in that region was getting a chance to meet Skibum and try his pulla, which was fantastic.

This is a continuation of the experiment with putting partially dehydrated fruit in bread from last week's bake. The differences are that there was some rye included with the wheats in the sprouted grain, I had to retard the dough overnight due to a time conflict, and of course apples were used instead of pears.

Ready for The New Year.  L'Shana Tova!