Blog posts

made with a rolled oat and honey preferment....i'll post the recipe in a bit..

made these for the first time, a bit of work goes into them, but well worth the work!! fork split and toasted with a lot of butter......UHHHHHH!

Hi! I just want to share these photos with you. I baked this bread a few weeks ago, soon after I made my AYW. The water was fresh, sweet, mild. The formula was very simple, and the bread was delicious. I'm not sure I used YeastWater properly (all the liquid was YW, and I did not made a preferment), but I take it as an experiment with a good result.

The formula was:

My partner is great at preserves and has recently turned her hand to olives, which were sourced from our small potted olive tree and branches overhanging fences around the neighbourhood. We see scrumping as a form of urban harvesting - the olives we took would have fallen to the street and rotted.

Last week was the big reveal. We'd waited months for the moment of tasting, so decided to make an occasion of it with a big farmhouse platter for dinner featuring the olives, an assortment of cheeses, some crudites and prosciuotto - and of course, a nice red.

Currently, I'm only baking three bread formulae (our daily breads), baguettes, and two sourdoughs: 50% each WW and Bread flours , and a mostly-white flour (equal amounts AP and Bread flours and 10% Whole Rye). I alternate the sourdough bakes week-to-week; and, for the two most recent bakes, I've retarded the fermenting dough for 17 hours @ 54°F. I'm doing this to extract maximum flavors.

This is the first mostly-white version with my new starter.(67% Hydration)

Hamelman’s Vermont Sourdough is one of my favorite recipes. It is so consistent in both flavor and texture. It’s hard to mess up this formula. It’s still pretty warm in Tallahassee, FL so paying attention to the Desired Dough Temperature (DDT) is important. Following Hamelman’s instructions I needed chilly water.

Desired Dough Temperature           76

Multiplication Factor                         4

This is an illustration of Shaping a dough into a ball (Boule). I learned this technique from San Fransisco Baking circle.

David (dmsnyder), was the first to demonstrate this shaping method here.(thanks David!). I thought of illustrating the method, and share it with all of you.

******************************************************************************************************

Note : "The method"  edited on 11th Oct. '11.  Sorry I forgot to write you need to lower the temperature of the oven after 20 minutes! Sorry!!!!!!!!

****************************************************************************************************

I seem to be going through a “dud” phase – two below the average sourdoughs in the row. Tried a multigrain rye, and it was a disaster, all grey inside and looks like a brink. Another rye this morning – same problem, haven’t cut it yet, but it doesn’t look promising.

To cheer myself up I’ve decided to make a pie – can’t recommend a better way to cheer you up. Wonderfully tangy and full of blueberry goodness, it was gone in less than 5 hours :)

It's funny how things come together some times. Katie, one of Andy's students in college developed this recipe that Karin (a German baker transplanted to Maine) baked and posted last week. It was a beautiful loaf. About the same time a new poster from Iceland ( Schrödinger's O...) presented a beautiful bread with a natural expansion instead of slashing.