Blog posts

A few weeks ago, I posted a question about using soft winter wheat for baking artisan bread. Here's the brief story. My wife and I are somewhat passionate about local food. Since we can only grow soft wheat here in Kentucky, I always assumed that I would have to buy flour milled from wheat grown in Kansas or the Northern Plains.

Fast forward to Monday when I was at the market and saw this:

Background:

Inspired by Txfarmer's post ( http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/14636/auvergne-rye-baguette-bacon ) last week I baked Leaders Auvergne Rye with Bacon today.  I didn't have the really open crumb txfarmer had but I'm pleased with the results.  These loaves were proofed in the fridge overnight which, if anything else developed a good 'skin' that made scoring easy.  I expected more of a bacon flavor - I'd say there is a hint of flavor but not much more - which is disapointing after adding seven slices

We spent yesterday taking our granddaughter Jewels to hear Mrs. Claus reading stories and her first visit with Santa. Being 17 months, she wasn't all that enthralled with the story time, but did enjoy marching around and having a great conversation with herself and whoever else wanted to listen. The babbling cracks me up, she is so expressive with her hands.

Hello Everyone:

   I live in a small town in VA, and on a yearly basis new books are purchase for the library.  I requested the Bread Baker's Apprentice( because of the high recommendation from this site) for the library since we have nothing remotely close to what being recommended on this site. I copied Floyd's book review and  gave the list to the librarian who has to submit to the committee.  Well, the verdict came two days ago!

This bread has two sources of inspiration. First is the basic sourdough formula from BBA, which is this week's recipe for the BBA challenge (yes, we are still hanging on, the end is near though); the other is the mexcali heat bread from the ever so helpful sourdough home website:http://www.sourdoughhome.com/chipotlebeanbread.html

As of late, I have been taken by the flavor of durum flour in my breads. Most often I make Susan's sourdough and use about 15% rye and 5% durum along with the bread flour. I had been using more than 5% of durum flour but got a bit carried away. The flavor enhancing effect turns into flavor dominating if you go above 10%.(imho) Less than 10%, it adds a slight buttery flavor and beautiful color to the crumb.

When you have a lot of time on your hands and want to test yourself....this a good bread to try. I originally saw this bread posted at Wild Yeast when Susan was having a giveaway for the SFBI book Advanced Bread and Pastry.

The Swiss have the reputation for being very punctual. Well, you might think now, that we're this time to early. But - you're mistaken.

The 6th of december is here Santa Claus' day, or as we say, "the Samichlaus comes". Sadly, the real Samichlaus doesn't come to our house anylonger as my siblings and me are considered to be too old by now. (Well, I understand, we're 22, 20 and 17 ...) But we still keep the rest of the custom up.

Just yesterday's bread...

100g starter (100% hyd.), 315g water, ~1/4 cup mixed sesame seeds, 9g salt, 1 tsp toasted sesame oil, 400g All Trumps high-gluten flour, 50g coarse whole wheat flour

Keep your dough close to 76F throughout mixing and fermentation.