Blog posts

Hi all,

The third meeting of bread baking enthusiasts in San Diego took place today. 

It was a great meeting, with 7 of us in attendance. I took pictures of all the breads we brought, and wrote about the meeting. You can find it all here:

http://foldingpain.blogspot.com/2008/03/third-san-diego-bread-lovers-meeting.html

Our next meeting will probably be on April 19, with the subject of rye breads. If you are in the area, please come! 

Sourdough Ciabatta

I used the recipe from Peter Reinhart "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" - the Biga version.

My Biga was my white sourdough, mixed with an equal amount of organic bread flour and some water to make a firm starter.

I used half the oil given in Reinhart's recipe. I proved it on a couche (well, I got a length of thick cotton table-cloth material from a textile shop and hemmed the edge).

 I made this recipe with half the amount of yeast called for in the original, keeping everything else the same. I don't like a discernible yeasty taste in bread so this turned out purrrrrrr-fect. No yeasty taste or smell. Moist, soft and delicious.

My second attempt at using yeast!

I discovered one packet of my yeast, labeled as 18g, results in more than 35 ml (about 7 tsp or 2 1/3 Tbsp) of dry yeast. Is it okay that I store what I don't use in an airtight tupperware-type container, in a dark cabinet?

I started preparing for the pretzels at 8:10 pm using floyd's recipe here.

Make you own diastatic malt

You can make your own:  sprout a cup of wheat berries by covering
them with water in a jar for 12 or so hours, dump out the water &
rinse with clean water, and place the jar in a darkish, warmish,
place.  Rinse the berries every day with clean water and return to
their place.

In 2-3 days they will begin to sprout.  When the sprout is as long as
the berries themselves, dump them out on paper towels, dry them off,
and set on a cookie sheet in the sun for a day or so to dry out. Then

Since my husband is out of town, I fished for a Shabbos invitation at a close friend's house. He was going to be out all day, so I volunteered to bake the challah. I haven't made one for them before, and I always do a six-strand loaf for my debut. It has about 1/3 King Arthur white whole wheat, and 1/4 c dark flax seed meal.

http://www.sfbi.com/events.html

Today I made Norm's recipe for Irish Soda Bread. Discussion here and elsewhere has me convinced that his Americanized version is more appropriately called Spotted Dog.

Norm's Spotted Dog (Soda Bread)