Blog posts

Taking a break from fence rebuilding, I've updated a bunch of the modules on the site.  I added something many folks have asked for, a private messaging (PM) system, so users should be able to send and receive notes to and from other individual members of the community.  It looks like is a pretty clean, simple, easy to use system.  Let me know if you have any problems with it.

I am making my first loaf of bread with liquid levain.  It seeems to be rising so assuming that is a good sign!  When you refresh levain do you have to discard some of it or can you just keep feeding it?  I am very new at this but determined to get it all down!  I will post pictures of my finished product.  

I had to clean up some 'almost old' flour, so I just made simple bread with the standard recipe this weekend. 

In half of the dough I added a bit more yeast, and then I used a slowrise-overnight method. This is the top-right bread. The bread is not that high, but has more tast. I guess it got too cold, which killed the rising process. 

For each cup of flour called for in your recipe:

1 Table soy flour

1 Table nonfat dry milk powder

1 Table wheat germ

Fill the remainder of cup with flour and it's instantly healthier for you!  Or so says my mother's hippie friends ;)

2 Cup boiling H2O

1 Cup rolled oats

2 1/2 teasp salt

1/2 tablep butter

1/2 Cup honey or molasses

1/3 Cup warm H2O

2 packets active dry yeast

6 Cups white flour

Flatbreads and Flavors by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid represents a dream job for me - and probably most of us - travelling the world and sampling authentic cuisine so you can write a cookbook that will be widely acclaimed and loved by all.  This book is wonderful and is as much travelogue as it is recipe book.  We decided to sample a Georgian recipe for cheese boat breads.  As they described these, they were presented as something resembling a deep-dish cheese pizza.  This can leave a bit of a false impression, as their version is not overpowered by the cheese. 

MountainDog's blog entry on overnight Colombia loaves struck my fancy, so I made a single loaf for the family. What a hit with my family!

I really like Hamelman's light rye bread (from his book "Bread", page 197).  I bake it fairly frequently and use it mostly for sandwiches and toast.

I've always liked the walnut raisin pain au levain Dan Leader sells at Bread Alone Bakery near me, and I've been wanting to try something like this for awhile and finally got around to it this week, but with cherries and pecans.