Blog posts

So , I finally have one I want to share in my first post!  I have only been baking steadily for a couple of months now, and since I successfully captured some wild yeasties, have been using them exclusively.  I have also tried to simplify things as much as possible, hence have tended to keep my sourdough starter roughly the same hydration as my final dough.  As I have a regular day job, but don't want to limit my baking to weekends, I have been working on a means of fitting my baking into a regular day's schedule, and have come up with a technique that seems to work for me (m

At the beginning of the year, when I was a complete novice, I went to the half price book store, in the hope of finding some inspiration and help.  I couldnt find anything specific in the cookery section, so I meandered off to the discount shelves in hope of finding a novel in order to utllise my time doing something other than filling my freezer with dough items.  I noticed one book had been replaced backwards.  Imagine my excitement as I pulled it out, to find the title was simply 'BREAD'.  Eureka!  I have since made and adapted (oh yes, I said adapted...my advent

This is a 50% wholewheat from "BREAD". I have finally achieved the color i wanted and the crumb texture i like. THis is a keeper.

To obtain the color, I have improvised enclosed steaming for this one:

Poultry roaster with lid. Under the roaster a stone, and in the roaster lid: a stone squeezed-in in such a way that it dented the lid, but remained in. This way, i can get heat from a stone on top of the loaf, and from under the loaf, all in an enclosed space to trap steam. IT Worked!

Here are the loaves:

Today I revisited my childhood. For the first time I baked Danish Tebirkes.
For many years my grandmother, aunt, two cousins and I would spend our summer holidays in Denmark. Every morning
one of us kids would bike to the grocery store to pick up freshly baked rolls for breakfast. My favorite were Tebirkes, buttery, croissant-like rolls, sprinkled with poppy seeds.

Continuing my experiments with Lahey bread...

I have wanted to take classes from SFBI for so long, but TX is not exactly close to SF, and my day job really gets in the way of scheduling. When I saw they started offering some weekend workshops, I jumped on the opportunity. And of course, I picked the baguette class, since that's my main obsession.

It is said that making pesto requires patients and love. The motion of the wooden pestle against the stone mortar brings out the oils. Trofietti Liguri is a traditional dish in Liguria.

http://turosdolci.wordpress.com/2010/06/28/trofiette-liguri-and-genovese-pesto/

Growing up in England in the late forties, early fifties, Tatt's cafe Near Folkestone Central train station served the most delicious Belgium Buns. I remember them being 4-5inches across and about 3/4 of an inch high. They were soft and sticky. filled with currants and glazed with transparent icing. It seems that there is only one recipe on the whole of the internet for these wonderful buns but although I have tried it many times it is just not right! Does anyone else remember these buns or have a recipe for them?

My fig tree gave me it's first lovely figs of the summer.  For tonights dinner I made a pizza with figs, goat cheese, pine nuts and a lovely sweet thick basalmic glaze.  I had some frozen pizza dough and the recipe for the dough is right on the TFL front page list of recipes or just click Here.    

I stretched the dough nice and thin and thicker for the crown.  It made a lovely crispy pizza crust.   

Hamelman's 5 Grain Levain is becoming one of our everyday favorites. Baked per the formula in Bread with added wheat germ.