Blog posts

Nothing new in today's baking, but these are two of my favorites.

The San Francisco Sourdough is from Suas' "Advanced Bread and Pastry." I fed my stock starter to make a firm levain with KAF Bread Flour and BRM Dark Rye. The final dough was mixed with KAF AP. The San Joaquin Sourdough was made as previously described (many times). This batch was made with a 73% hydration dough.

I feel my bâtard shaping is coming along. I'm using the technique described in Hamelman's "Bread."

I am looking for a dough hook and whisk for a 10 quart Hobart.  Does anyone know where I could find those parts?  Hobart no longer makes that size machine or parts.  I am wondering if the 12 quart attachment (dough hook) would fit.  If it can fit on the machine I can have it cut to fit.  I can live without the whisk as I need the machine to knead bread which I now do by hand.  I have a 6 quart Kitchen Aid which is suitable for small batches of dough.

I intended to start a blog and leave a post every week with updates of a new loaf or new idea as a way to help me keep on experimenting and learning. So far, alas I have fallen at the first hurdle, after an impromptu trip to Paris I failed to update my blog the first week and haven't done so since.

Artichokes have a delicate flavor and just using fresh tomatoes a little wine results in a flavorful sauce that compliments the pasta. If you are willing to make fresh pasta, you will be rewarded with a wonderful dish you will prepare again and again.

http://turosdolci.wordpress.com/2010/05/15/spaghetti-with-fresh-artichokes/

Hey, hey.  So, it's midnight great time to fire up the mixer right?  Trying this Scottish sponge bread from Laurel's Bread Book.  Have made it a bunch in the KA. So will try it in the big mixer. Capacity prob. The 15 cups of flour total will hardly make the mixer work. Oh well, gotta start somewhere. I like to learn the hard way.  Well, may not like to learn that way so much as it sticks with me.

With the starter that I made a week ago, I finally got to try a recipe using Dan Lepard - The Handmade Loaf.  White Leaven Bread Pg 28.

I halved the ingredient as I was not sure how it'll turn out.  With the freshly made starter,  I just did 1 refrehment.  Made a little too much,  and the rest went to making muffins and pancakes.

Ayway,  it was quite an experience.  I wanted a good well developed gluten,  and I wanted to nice holes in the crumbs.  I decided to do more rest,  stretch and fold and add my salt last.  

Growing starter in the refrigerator is said to minimize the sour taste of sourdough. It also enables us to reduce the feedings from 3 times a day to twice. I find my starters ferment very quickly these days making me wonder if I have enormous invisible colonies of yeast and bacteria in my kitchen. I also ferment water kefir, milk kefir, and kombucha so I assume there is quite a bit of activity going on.

I changed the formula to use my 100% sourdough, the rest is as the same as the formula in the book. It's a straightforward bread, autolyse, knead a bit, add olives(I may just have used a tiny bit more than what the book suggested), gently incorporate, bulk rise for 4 hours (two folds), shape, cold retarding for 12 hours, pull out of the fridge and continue to proof for 100min, bake at 460F for 45min.

This was a simple white bread with small amount of whole rye flour.  The first time I made a similar loaf was coincidently around the same period last year.  Since then, I’ve acquired many new skills and made some progress in making artisan breads.  I felt that I’ve grown in the past year, as a learner, from an infant to a toddler, who is now on her feet confidently and curiously exploring in a giant Breads-R-Us. Thank you again to those of you who have helped me up and walking along this wonderful journey.

There is rye, and then there is rye.  The chief difference is this: with one you bake with and the other you distill. The ingredients (not surprisingly) are remarkably similar, as is the process in many respects.  And both finished products are equally capable of eliciting hurrahs!

This past weekend I was fortunate to be able to straddle both worlds.