Blog posts

The weather is finally cooling off here in Phoenix and for my hubby and I that means one thing: picnic season has arrived! And with it, my favorite part, a reason to bake picnic breads. 

I think I've had a fairly successful Crescia al Formaggio, although I'm not sure that the inside looks as it should. The bread was flavorful, even the sponge that the melted cheese didn't get to. 

I have been messing around with bun recipes trying to get one the girls would eat as opposed to the store bought ones.  This time Lucy finally got one to work and we had enough time to let them rise properly – the main problem with the slow rising SD ones.

Well got sick this weekend and missed the market bake but I had to feed the starter and decided to take the extra and make 2 builds, 1 wheat and 1 white.  I intended on a whole wheat bread but after looking at my inventory of flour I opted to make a loaf I do at my current job with some improvements.  Since I had both builds I just used them in combo for the one bread.  I wasn't quite sure how well this would turn out as it was only the first build off my starter which hadn't been fed in a few days but I proceeded anyway and with great success.  

Brother Glenn and I so often seem synchronized. Get this: I'm still baking bread too! But, then, I am not going to Scotland any time soon. 

This week, I took a break from my adventures in Forkishland and baked some old favorites.

San Francisco-style Sourdough with diamond scoring

  In hindsight I should have baked this bread as a Ciabatta since it ended up such a slack and wet dough.  While I was working on the final formulas and trying to figure out what hydration level to use for maple syrup and sweet potatoes I discovered that sweet potatoes are extremely high in water.  In fact they are around 85% water which I now know is the main reason why this dough ended up so wet.  Next time I bake this one I would definitely adjust the water content to get it down to around 70-75% hydration or cut down some of the sweet potatoes.

So, here i am again. I've been too lazy and tired to comment or blog; the weekend class is draining me off and i don't have much energy to bake anything.

First is Pasry. The last two classes (4 sessions) were on cakes which we managed to finish on time. As shown, we've baked using the foaming, creaming, and altogether techniques. A shining example of the altogether was the chocolate cake; the queen of all cakes which brought an end to our cakes lesson.

Howdy TFLers.  Been a while.  I just wanted to check in and say hi.  I continue to bake, though not every week like I used to.  Most of my baking is the tried-and-true standards: a variety of sourdoughs, fruit-nut breads like Reinhart's Cinnamon-Raisin-Walnut, an occasional challah, bagels, pizza.

Lately, I have not been following any recipes, but instead, just winging it with my loaves. Today I had some whole wheat/rye blend left over, so I decided to make a few loaves. I finally got the proofing time right, so that the ear opened up just enough.

Compared Maggie Glezer's ciabatta http://articles.latimes.com/2005/sep/21/food/fo-bread21 vs. Jason's ciabatta http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/2984/jasons-quick-coccodrillo-ciabatta-bread.

We decided to make more of a white bread this week and to put some prunes in it since we haven’t put any fruits in bread since we baked babka this morning – but before that it has been a while.