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Back to work today after a wonderful vacation. I started with the usual poolish last night but for today I wanted a slow rising dough that I could leave all day. I used the usual KAF recipe for baguettes but added a total of 1 tsp yeast including the poolish and half of the salt. This is what I found when I got home 7 hrs later:

Luckily my husband was able to fold it for me mid-day :) I formed two small boules and baked them on a stone with steam. Yummy!

I was watching these beauties actively springing in the oven when I realized that I forgot to add the salt! No wonder they were so active. I used my pizza stone for the first time and got beautiful, crunchy crusts. In leu of a peal I sprinkled corn meal on pieces of parchment paper and slid them onto the stone which was already in the oven. It worked like a charm! I steamed the oven with about a cup of water which was poured into a hot roasting pan on the bottom. Look at that bubble! 

Over the holidays my husband has been trying to increase his carbon footprint by leaps and bounds.  This time of year is quiet for us, we own an A/C and heating company in Texas.  So summers are crazy and winters allow us some time to play.  Our big new toy has been the wood fire oven.  I didn't realize how into cooking in it my husband would become.  I swear he has decimated the chicken population around here in recent weeks and I have made more bread than I could really give away.  I am waiting for my neighbors to not look me in the eye and try to run wheneve

My daughter, her husband, 3 children and Moochie, one of their dog's just returned back home here in San Diego from a 4 day sightseeing trip to New Orleans.  This was one of their many stops.  Moochie goes everywhere..see his little ear and foot in the photo!  I bet he even got to enjoy some Beignet!

 Beignet at the Cafe Du Monde

Sylvia

It has been quite some time since I posted on my favorite website. But (un)fortunately the business and consulting world is holding me up from blogging and bread baking. But before I disappear again in the offices of the corporate world in upstate NY, I wanted to share this picture I found by accident in one of my old bread books today.

Hi all, I've been enjoying all your posts over the last week or so, it looks like many of you produced great breads for the holidays.  I did some baking over the holidays I need to catch up on blogging about.  I was away from home so in other words, away from the mixer, the baking stone, my arsenal of flours and the sourdough I am used to working with.  Add to that new brotforms I received for Christmas and you don't know what will happen.  Thankfully I have been reading up here at the fresh loaf and this gave me the opportunity to experiment with new methods and get out

When nothing seems to be rational in my life and I have lost all of my center I can always turn to baking...and so it has been for 37 years or so. I made my first Challah in 1976 or so...here it is again...almost every week since then. I had some extra "discard" starter and bananas and applesauce that I made last summer and lo and behold it becomes bread and muffins. My freezer is full and for a little while the demons are held back.

I received a copy of "Breads From La Brea Bakery" for Christmas and today made the bagels from it. I have made bagels from other recipes 3 or 4 times before and had reasonable results. These were by far the best looking ones. I have yet to taste them but they are also the first bagels I have made using sourdough so I think they will be good.

Oh my, oh my, oh my.  I finally made Shiao Ping's Chocolate Sourdough.  Let me first say, SP--you really need to publish a cookbook.  It would be full of great recipes and fun, witty stories.  I thank you so much for bringing us this recipe.  Words just don't describe how good this is.  "Epic" is a good starting place...kudos to your son.  I made this as written.  All I had in the pantry were milk chocolate chips (large chips, about double the size of the regular bittersweet chips).  The biggest challenge I had was chips popping out of the d

What do you do when you bought the wrong grapes and your children and house guests don't eat them?  I don't mind the odd seeds in the grapes; I chew them and swallow them.  They are good for you.  Plenty of anti-oxidant in the grape seeds!  But do you think I can get my family to eat these beautiful grapes?