Blog posts

Hi there all the bread lovers.

I'm Ilan, I work in the Hi-Tech industry for the last 10 years which means that I have very little time for myself or my family during the week.

For the last few years, I find comfort in the kitchen, cooking for me, my wife and our extended family. It became a therapy for me - after a long week of work I prefer to cook for 10 people instead of having a good weekend rest.

Bread fascinated me for a long time and about two year ago, I started to bake my own bread.

Notes:

- Used my 100% hydration starter.

- Two builds to reach 8 oz active starter. The starter smelled fruity, not sour. Bubbles about half a centimeter big.

- Final dough: 2 cups whole wheat flour (365 from Whole Foods) and under 1 cup AP flour (King Arthur), 1 tsp wheat gluten. 

- For DDT of 76 degrees, added 1.5 cups water at about 90 degrees.

- 30 minute autolyse. Kneaded till windowpane.

- 45 minute rise, stretch and fold, 60 minute rise.

Easily the best non-sourdough loaf I have ever made. Followed instructions to the letter.

What surprised me the most was how incredibly light the loaf was. Very good for morning toast. Best within 3-4 days. Thank you Peter Reinhart and BBA!

Just recently, Mariana-Aga, a fellow baker who I have great respect for and who is an occasional poster here, presented a very interesting paper with extensive photos on the development of gluten. For the purposes of her research and documentation she used a food processor to mix and develop, then over develop the dough. All of the various stages are carefully documented and you can see the tell tale signs of the dough being over worked and ruined.

I hope this is ok to do this as I can't find the posts I wanted to add these too as I am new here.  Yesterday I made these breads, a yeasted dough cottage loaf, following Elizabeth David's method (first time I have ever baked a loaf from a cold start!)  and the pain de sielge d'auvergne, I think its lineage goes as follows, Daniel Leader, LeadDog and Mick of Bethesdabakers, thank you all for this recipe -  and my usual Pain de Campagne.  

I hope this is ok to do this as I can't find the posts I wanted to add these too as I am new here.  Yesterday I made these breads, a yeasted dough cottage loaf, following Elizabeth David's method (first time I have ever baked a loaf from a cold start!)  and the pain de sielge d'auvergne, I think its lineage goes as follows, Daniel Leader, LeadDog and Mick of Bethesdabakers, thank you all for this recipe -  and my usual Pain de Campagne.  

Today, finally, I got some bloomin ears!  

I've been playing with Susan (Wild Yeast) Norwich Sourdough and Floyd's San Joaquin sourdough on this site. I found the first too firm and sour, the second too slack and not sour enough, so I worked out my own formula...a happy marriage between the two.  And lo and behold---ears for the first time ever (in a dough not cooked in a dutch oven).  As it happens, I donated the bread for a friend's dinner party so no crumb shots.

When I started this quest to improve my baking skills, about one year ago, my goals weren't very specific. "Get better at bread baking" was about the best I could do. And "find help" was about as refined as I could codify my approach. Fortunately, I stumbled upon The Fresh Loaf early in my search for that help. I feel I've come a long way in that one year. TFL's members and guests are my inspriation, the helping hand I reach to first, the friends who share my best looking loaves and worst mistakes. I also search far-afield, but my roots are here, still shallow, but growing.

As I have been nurturing a white flour offspring of my usual rye starter I thought i'd give it a test bake with a 100% Strong White loaf before using it with some expensive french flour result was fine and as I add very little salt it tasted like a salt free Tuscan bread i've had in the past. Not much sourdough flavour though. The other loaf is my 2nd bash at Dan Lepards excellent walnut loaf but this time I ommitted the dried yeast and did a 100% sourdough version. It worked fine and I had seen other TFL members had tried this.

Many years ago our family lived in Singapore and I had a personal trainer.  Singapore is a young, vibrant society where sports may not be a big thing but going to the gym is popular.  I still remember that on the first day I looked around my gym and felt daunted by what I saw.  At the end of my first session, I asked my trainer how often I would have to train to look like her.   I like my trainer dearly, she is great; she said, "Oh, just three times a week!"