Blog posts

Trying to figure out what to do with starter discards is a common topic. But, what about pastry dough? I always end up with odd bits of tart dough or puff pastry that are left over from something I made. About a week ago my twelve-year-old niece, Carli, was visiting from Texas and, in addition to numerous loaves of bread, we made several tarts with pate sucree and puff pastry. After she left, the leftover dough pieces sat around in the fridge all week and needed to be used, frozen, or thrown away.

I found a small piece of Paris in Brisbane this morning.  Today is Saturday and a usual sports day for our household.  After dropping my daughter at hockey and my son at soccer, I gave myself a treat - I went to Chouquette Boulangerie Patisserie for coffee and ... whatever I could find there this morning.  It was a year ago when it has just been open that I last went there ... on the recommendation of my gay friend, the seamster.  He has not been well, and I have not been able to see him.   

Ciabatta rolls using Flo Makanai 1-2-3 formula.  The hydration was so wet when I mixed the formula using King Arthur bread flour.  I though it best to try making some Ciabatta rolls.  I pre-heated the oven and stones at 485 and baked under a foil cover for 10 min.

Baked red bean buns

and this is how I like my red beans :)

Hello,

Lang Lang was on the radio this morning (his piano, not his presence).  The English lady, Emma Ayres, hosts a fine, fine classic FM radio show, Teas on Toast, on ABC Radio.  She played Lang Lang's Haydn sonata in Carnegie Hall, 2003.   Lang Lang, 27, is the pride of modern day Mainland Chinese.   His reputation spread so rapidly that a Chinese-language biography appeared before his 17th birthday.  I have no business joining the band wagon in praising him.   But I can feel his sensibility through his fingers (the fastest finger

Po-Lo is a Chinese antiquity name for pineapple.  It went to Japan and then from there it went to Taiwan.  In 1931, a bakery in Tokyo obtained a patent for the cookie dough on top of a bread dough.  This cookie dough is made of flour, butter, sugar and milk.  Some experts in Japan say it had its origin from Austria ("viennoiserie," rings a bell?)  This is the bun that I had when I was a kid in Taiwan.  Today, you still find them in every bread shop and pastry shop over there.  

Last week, I received the book "100% Pain" by Eric Kayser that I had ordered.

Following closely in the footsteps of Hans, I baked Hamelman's "Whole-Wheat Levain" this morning:

There is a bread style in Hamelman's Bread (page 129, A Resting Loaf) that I've been trying to emulate: