Blog posts

Hi everybody. I made a light loaf with 19% rye flour. I took my inspiration from hamelman's Vermont Rye Sourdough and from txfarmer http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/23852/light-rye-cumin-and-orange. I used a liquid levain 100% and 20% of the total flour was in the preferment. The dough had a 72% hydration, but I was surprised of how easy was to handle it. I usualy have difficulties in handling very wet dough, especially in final shaping.

After a couple failed attempts using semolina grind for my starter.  My starter was going great with the duram flour.  I had only enough duram flour left for one loaf of Franko's Altamura.  I gave it a go today in my wfo.  Franko's formula 'Rocks' 'lol'.  I hope to have a better bake next go round.  My oven was to hot and the bread was getting overproofed, just to many irons in the fire today!

If one prepares and freezes stocks and stews and sauces, and breads, it  is necessary to re-organize one's freezer frequently.  In my case, "frequently" means approximately annually.

I recently went on an expedition in my freezer, to determine whether there was a stash of frozen pesto there (there was not, so I have another project when I didn't need to have another project).  In the course of my expedition (picture pitons and ice axes), I realized that I was reorganizing my freezer.  Fine, it needed it.

Another very productive weekend, with two beautiful brioche loaves. Can’t tell you how pleased I am with them, the loaves came out beautiful and light, with a wonderful texture and taste.

I gave one loaf away and already finished another one, well, I did freeze a couple of slices to have later on as a treat, plus I want to see how well the brioche freezes.

Last month, I posted about my work on developing a formula for the Pioneer Bread recipe from the Kansas Wheat Commission.

http://chaosamongstthefloursandflowers.blogspot.com/2011/06/variation-on-pioneer-bread.html

Okay. I know this is a baking forum, but consider: Rye bread cries for pastrami, and pastrami sandwiches cry for pickles. In fact, the respondents to my recent blog on Jewish Sour Rye Bread  and Eric's blog on home-made pastrami have more or less demanded I share my mother's recipe for the best ever garlic pickles.

But, first,  you have to hear a story about them, you should be warned.

I don't make pickles often. Typically, several years go by between picklings, so there are things I forget.

So here’s my first blog entry here at TFL. After lurking and secretly stealing and borrowing brilliant recipes and ideas from wonderful TFLers for a few years, only contributing very occasionally to the community with odd comments here and there, I decided (nudged by my fellow Essex TFLer, maxwellion) it’s ‘bout time I should pay back my long-overdue debt with some humble offerings of my recipes and  what I’ve learned from not-always-perfect bread making experiences.

Well, what a cute loaf!

Using the recipe from Franko
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/24172/first-success-altamura-project
which builds on others - I thought I'dgive it a go.   I'd tried a version with some white flour added - but not this time...

Building the Preferment:

I used the white wheat starter I have, and couldn't measure out a small enough quantity, so ended up with
30g starter (wheat, 100%)
50g durum flour
50g water

I always wanted to know how Pakistani wheat kernels i have in stock would perform in a loaf pan. I mill my own wheat, so i made a wholewheat loaf from Peter Reinhart's (Wholegrain breads). The loaf is seen here. I happened to find a pullman pan-look-alike on sale, and i purchased it without hesitation. The difference in this loaf, is that i sifted most of the bran out of the milled flour.