Blog posts

Janedo's Basic Bread

Janedo's Basic Bread Crumb

Sourdough baguettes - crumb

Sourdough (mini) baguettes

I made my own version of sourdough baguettes.

Baguettes "Monge"

I got a (very) few actual crackles in the crust! A thrill!

Baguettes "Monge" Crust

I followed Hamelman's five-grain levain recipe, but used 3 grains: Rye, Oats and a sprinkling of roasted wattle seed (Acacia baileyana) as a hot soaker.

The flour is 50% high-gluten flour, 25% bread flour and 25% whole wheat flour. Hydration was 98% (!), but almost all the water got soaked up by the seeds.

The dough called for a liquid levain, spiked with a little instant dry yeast 0.4%.

Olive levain - cooling out of the oven

Olive levain no.2 - crumb

We're back from San Francisco!

I took some pictures at Boudin's Sourdough market when we were playing tourist at Fisherman's Wharf.

Lately I have been switching around through various bread cookbooks, especially Reinhart’s Whole Grain Bread Book and Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, in addition to experimenting with my sourdough formula and trying recipes from TFL. I thought I would post photos from my bakes of three of the Reinhart whole grain recipes. All three are 100% whole grain.

Well, not really - I can only claim one of them as being anything close to my own recipe.

My younger son and I went out for dinner Saturday and stopped by a used book store on the way home. Whenever we are in a used book store, antique store, garage sale, etc I annoy my wife by saying "why is there never an _Artisan Baking Across America_ or something at a reasonable price?". Saturday there was; I found Glezer's ABAA hardcover in like-new condition for $25. List price new was $40 and ones in average condition go for $40 today on Bibliofind so I snapped it up.

Olive levain just out of the oven

Olive levain - crumb

The recipe called for a liquid levain. The flavour was extraordinary. I didn't know the flavour of the levain can change as much as it did (going from stiff to liquid).