Blog posts

I have decided to work my way though Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice. I have made my own challah for some years now but really rarely ventured into any other breads. There are many techniques that I need to perfect.  I have read though the first part of the book and today I started with Anadama Bread. I substituted honey for the molasses as I am not keen on the flavour. I need to buy myself another loaf tin. I only have one small one and the recipe make 2 loaves. I did the second one in a pyrex loaf dish.

The 'Stew' of the day:

Here Glasgow the weather is still wintery, Ok, today was abt 5hrs sun shine but yesterday abt 3hrs not rained out of the 24hr. Today I decided to use up some of my winter roots and some dried beans. About a week ago I brought some nice cannellini beans, even shape, nice shine, great texture and amazing taste. So I cooked this stew style dish and served with some of my leftover sourdough loaf, grated parmesan over it. I think its quite a nice dish if someobody likes beans as much as I do. And believe me I do love them.

Hello,

I would like to share my scones with you guys, hope some of yous get some inspiartions from it, as its quick, easy and great with a cuppa.

in the oven

cooling on wire rack

with jam and clotted cream

    This is the recipe I use for afternoon tea and cream tea scones.

Ingredients:

Fougasse is my favorite easy sourdough: I love the extra crust and the ease of pulling it apart. I made these with my version of Pierre Nury's and Zolablues Light rye: 65% hydration 5% rye, 20% levain (approximate) and 1.8% salt. The levain was kept in the fridge for a couple of days before I made this bread. Overnight retard following minimum stretching/folding. Rolled in poppy seeds and fennel seeds, brushed with olive oil, baked on stone 500/400 degrees F.

Wohooo,back from vacation and here now I can finally post about my two recent bakes.

Some of you witnessed the strange transformation the Hamelman Vermont SD w/increased whole grains took in my kitchen.Here is a synopsis with pictures:

- due to me being too frazzled to actually do the most sensible thing-using the metric large scale amounts to reduce to home size, I ended up with a way different percentage ratio.

Semolina [Durum] Bread and Sourdough Seed Bread.

I've been home-based all Easter weekend, so I decided on Thursday that I would make an inroad into the Hamelman Challenge set up by Brian: see http://thebreadchallenge.weebly.com/

Inspired by the beautiful pictures of Hamelman Pain au Levain 5% Rye posted by Larry, I decided to make it.   I knew that this would be tough, given my experience level, but I figured I might as well give it a try.   I started yesterday with making the levain.   It calls for old levain, which I didn't have, so I decided to use the sourdough starter that I've been tending for the last few months even though it is made with White Whole Wheat, for the two tablespoons of old levain that the formula calls for.   There must be another way to do it, but sinc

I recently baked, for the third time, two sourdough boules, which besides the primary purpose: Eating, tested the effects of slashing, and steaming methods, and the behavior of a new starter. The latter is posted elswhere (Purchased Dried Starter Reactivation Survey).

These loaves were slashed identically, placed in the oven simultaneously, and swapped position after 15 minutes of steaming. The ovenspring realized is shown here,

Last week my wife and I took a short vacation to a small farm on the outskirts of Victoria, BC.  We stayed with Diane (aka intern#2 last year) and her husband Ed - both gracious hosts, tour guides, and entertainers for our (almost) week long stay.  On one of the days I taught a couple of classes at The French Mint, a culinary school in Victoria run by chef Denise Marchessault.  In the morning I taught a class on croissants, in the evening a class about sourdoughs.  Both went great.