I decided to start a blog to keep a log of my baking and hopefully get some feedback on my efforts. Rather than start by driveling on about how long I've been baking for etc. (plenty of time for that). I think I'll get straight on to posting this mornings efforts.
I am happy to have found a bread that my wife and I agree upon. I prefer hearty flavors (that stand up to obscene amounts of toppings and sauce), whereas she prefers tender white breads. It's important to find this balance given that the bread I bake is the bread we're both stuck with until I bake a new batch.
Hello,
Over the past 2 weeks, I made several easter breads to share with family and friends, here they are...
- Tsoureki - Greek Easter Breads. No, I am not greek, and I didn't know of this bread until this year, but some of my running friends are, and I made this for our recent gathering.
Greek Easter Bread
Makes one 2 ½ pound loaf
4 Tablespoons butter
2 heaping dessertspoons of honey
2 eggs
2 teaspoons dry yeast
1½ teaspoons salt (2 if using unsalted butter)
1 teaspoon anise extract
20 ounces (about 4 cups) unbleached white flour
1 1/3 cup water at room temperature
Hey All,
Just wanted to share with you some spelt sourdough batards that I baked last night. I'll post the recipe a little later. Enjoy!
Tim
Though it may sound weird, but it is a mega Batard, more like Batard a la Miche.
Ingredients:
200g Whole Rye Flour
600g Whole Wheat Flour (Half of which is bread flour)
200g White Bread Flour
200g All Purp
2 tablespoons fine Sea salt
2 Tablespoons Thym
100g starter (85% hydr)
1/2 teaspoon inst. yeast (in the final dough)
All in all, it is 75% hydration dough, with wholewheat flours as Soaker, and White flours as Biga.
I recently acquired a new toy...a camera remote that also has timer features. Playing around, I shot a time lapse video of dueling starters. Here are 9 hours condensed into 12 seconds.
On the left is my San Fran and on the right is a Swedish Rye recently received from Northwest Sourdough. Both began with 80g of starter and were fed 80g of flour and 100g of water.
The San Fran has 2 complete rises, 2 dramatic collapses and is starting a 3rd rise when the clip ends.
The Rye peaked at 3h09m and again at 5h27m.
I wasn't planning to make baguettes in my seven day bread making challenge to myself, but this morning I realized that my refrigerator was being taken over by bread byproducts. In addition to my whole wheat sour dough starter and rye sour, I had the leftover levain from the pain de compagne I made the other day, as well as the bread equivalent of a chain letter - a white flour starter for Amish Friendship Bread that a friend dropped off the other day. I had no intention of making the friendship bread. It has most likely never been cooked in an Amish kitch
