Blog posts

Necessity is the mother of invention (or at least tweaking), right? It certainly is around here! I came to TFL (naturally) to find a solution to my problem: there was no more sandwich bread in my house. This is about as big a problem as no running water. My middle child is addicted to peanut butter sandwiches, and since she has a limited number of "healthy" foods she likes, we encourage her to eat them. (She's autistic; trying to get her to eat food she doesn't like/want is... well, next to impossible.

Monday 8:30 AM (Hey! This is like work!) saw a room full of bakers and imposters gathered to hear a lecture on commercially yeasted pre ferments from Didier Rosada and Jeffrey Yankellow.

I don't think it is fair, nor do I think it is possible for me to record the entire content of this two and a half hour lecture in this blog.  However, there are some highlights that bear reporting.

I found in the internet very few recipes with diastatic and non-diastatic malt. So I made a few experiment, which in the end gave a very successful result.

Ingredients:

I have been baking regularly for a year and a half. The fresh loaf has been my primary education. Thank you all.

This represents this week's levain bake. The formula evolved from Hammelman's Vermont sourdough, and continues to drift weekly. The weather changed recently and the kitchen is cooler; the formula will be different next week.

I like to mix an 1800g batch at 78% hydration, as the numbers are friendly. 1000g flour (here: 75% Gold Medal unbleached AP, 20% White whole wheat, 5% rye), 780g water, and 20g salt; 20% flour prefermented.

Over the past few years I have tried countless pizza dough recipes on my quest for what I consider the perfect pizza crust.

I am still trying to develop a recipe for cream buns something like the scones from Murchies in Victoria, BC (see my previous posts on the topic here and here).  What I baked yesterday turned out awfully good and, if memory serves me right, is along the same lines of what they serve at Murchies.

This baguette has many inspirations: the long cold autolyse from Anis, long cold bulkrise from Gosselin, SD instead of instant yeast from David's San Joaqin SD... With 12 hr autolyse, 24 hr cold rise, the process last at least 40 hours from start to finish, however, very little time is spent on real work, most of the time, I just have to wait and let time do its magic.

After having drooled over Floyd's Blueberry Cream Cheese Braid for a long time, I finally made it yesterday. I made half a batch and am glad I did. I would recommend at least 3 braids if you make a whole batch. The half batch was so big it was hanging of both ends of my 15" sheet pan. That being said, after breakfast this morning there is a big piece missing! It was great.

Changes and observations.