Blog posts

I finally invested in a new baking stone, one that fills an oven shelf with only a couple of inches to spare. Now I can make baguettes that approach 18" to 20" in place of the stubby ones I baked before. Consequently, along with sourdough, sticky buns, foccacia, and getting familiar with spelt, I've been baking my own baguette formula that has borrowed heavily from Anis Bouabsa's formula and especially his process, and, in the most recent batch, Peter Reinhart's pain a' l'ancienne procedures.

One night my wife and her friend had dinner in a local French restaurant.  The owner/chef came out to speak with them about their dinner and offered desserts.  My wife mentioned to him that I had been making Madeleines that night before she left.  The chef got very enthusiastic and took my wife and her friend on a tour of his kitchen, offering them free desserts and sending a suggestion home to me that I should try to make canneles (kan-nuh-lay), which he did not make.  I started researching canneles online and not only found many different recipes with slight varia

Today's baking was one basic sourdough batard and a yeasted mostly white sandwich/toast loaf.  Very pleased with the white yeasted loaf, not overly thrilled about the batard, only because my starter's sourness has dropped off of late (will have to work on that) and the crumb was fairly tight, which was unexpected.  I attribute it to the hydration being too low.  Nonetheless, a nice tasty loaf (and a more delicate sour taste seems to be more to the family's liking, I am the only one apparently, who likes it good and sour).  The white loaf is excellent, very fluffy and lig

I have seen Schiacciata recipes from several books, as a big fan of savory focaccia, I've always wanted to try it. Recently we bought a lot of fresh blueberries on sale, so I combined several recipes, used blueberries instead of the usual concord grapes, added some rosemary flavor, and here's a beautiful schiacciata (i.e. sweet focaccia) that's delicious too. 

- The night before, make sponge:

 After discovering the delights of home baking sourdough well over a year ago there is one recipe I love to bake as it always provides consistent results and seems to be happy with whatever flour mix I have in the cupboard.  The recipe is based around the sourdough section in The River Cottage Bread Handbook by Daniel Stevens plus some tips from Dan Lepard. Hmmm a lot of bakers seem to be called Dan. 

I was interested to read the different recipes found for Malt Bread. On trips back to England I have always brought back loaves of this yummy sticky bread. I kept the list of ingredients from the wrapper of one of these loaves and after some trial and error have come pretty close to the real thing! At the time I had a bread machine so made it in that - but now make it like any other bread. I believe the most important ingredient is the diastatic malt flour - this is what makes it sticky. I have not been able to find caramel colouring since I recently moved to BC.

Hey All,

Catching up again on my blogging here and post some pics of some ciabatta and country miche from my 1/21/10 bake.  I'll post recipes if requested...

Enjoy!

Tim

Ciabatta Recipe:

Ingredients:

60% AP Flour (674g)

35% Bread Flour (674g)

3% WW Flour (34g)

Hey All,

Just wanted to catch up on my blogging here and post some pics of some 80% WW bread and ciabatta from my 1/19/10 bake.  I'll post recipes if requested...

Enjoy!

Tim

I'm new to baking bread and have a question about density. I have baked the bread from the recipe provided in lesson 2. This has turned our great several times, but, I'm wondering what the trick is to making it less dense. I'm looking for a good bread to use for Sub's.

Thanks,

Darren

This is a bread that I have been wanting to try for some time. Jeff Hamelman did a great job of presenting it in his book, "Bread" and the story that goes with how he learned about it is heart felt. This style of bread is a long way from just about everything you might be familiar with. It isn't airy and light. It doesn't have a beautiful crust in the traditional way we usually think of a nice golden color, expanding at a well placed slash. What it is, is a compact, almost waxy mass of slowly baked rye and wheat dough in a high hydration formula.