I have baked the ciabatta formula from Maggie Glezer’s Artisan Baking many times. For me it’s a reference point of what an ideal ciabatta should taste, look and feel like … oh and the aroma of the fermented biga is pretty special too.
This went badly, badly wrong. Yes, that's how it came out of the oven.
They can't all be home runs...
So bake the bread.
The families--DNA'ed and extended--loved last year's bread and cookies, so we chose to do it again this year. Pictured is last week's baking. It's not everything but the freezer was chock-a-block, so we're starting shipping today to make more room. We found shipping Priority mail gets fresh or fresh-frozen sourdough--with refresh instructions (375°F oven, 5 mins.)--delivered still palatable and tasty. This year's packages hold a loaf of sourdough or Orange Pecan loaf, a dozen and a half of assorted Biscotti and, of course, a dozen of my rendering of Grandma's Welsh Cakes.
Chestnut-Mincemeat Monkey Bread
Baking is getting more festive by the day. The BreadLab is a mess after a trial bake for the X-mas specials that are up for the coming two weeks.
Chestnuts
Hamelman's Roasted Potato Bread, with some modifications. I used a bit of my sourdough starter instead of yeast for the pate fermente, and also substituted about 12% rye flour for some of the white.
Note the chunks of potato sticking out the side of the proofed dough - have to cut the potato a bit finer next time.
The finished loaf.
sPh
Hello,
This was my first attempt working with flax seeds. I got a bag of brown whole flax seeds from the grocery store, soaked them at 300% hydration for 12 hrs. Separately, I made a 3lb / 1362g dough at 68% hydration using 90% AP flour, 10% einkorn flour, and a touch of honey (5%). 20% of the flour was a liquid levain at 125% hydration, 50% of the flour was a cold flour soaker at 80% hydration. For the flax seed soaker, I wasn't sure in advance how many seeds I'd want in the dough, so I just soaked a bunch of seeds, more than I'd need.
Cat and I decided to go for a hike yesterday on Mount Sutro, the wooded mountain in the middle of San Francisco. Since we knew we’d be in for some calorie-burning, we stopped on the way at our neighborhood pizzeria, Pizzetta 211, a tiny place that is often rated as the best in the City. Cat had a bacon and butternut squash pie with chipotle crème fraiche. I had one with homemade sausage, radicchio and Gruyere. Sorry, I didn't have my camera along.
