Blog posts

It is a sad truth that supporting oneself can seriously compete for the time we want to spend on the really good stuff. Last week I squoze in some shopping between business errands. That trip to the bulk bins let me get some rice flour to help cotton release dough during proofing and barley to attempt home made malt. Although I am a child of the sixties, I never could get grains to sprout uniformly and this test was more of the same. Some grains go ahead and sprout and others just go to funk.

Partly due to a desire to answer some long-held questions, partly in reponse to a recent topic, I undertook an investigation of breadmaking while camping this weekend past.

I dont have any photos as the camera's battery went flat :S But the pumpkin bread was soooo great and tasted wonderful. it even had pumpkin flavour and was quite yellow.

Ingredients.

2/3 of a butternut pumpkin/squash chopped. seeded, peeled, boiled, drained and mashed.

500 grams of bread flour. (I used 1/3 cup of gluten glour which was approx 50g and made up the excess of weight with 100g spelt flour, 200g wheat wholemeal flour, 100g of white flour and made the rest up with rye approx 50g maybe a bit more.)

1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast.

After 7 long days, Thing 1 and Thing 2 are looking and acting like living, breathing starters. Thing 1, the indoor starter almost tripled itself today, and Thing 2, the outdoor starter doubled.

As I expected, they are behaving differently, but I actually expected Thing 2 to be more energetic than Thing 1. I guess I expected the outdoor microflora to be more lively than the ones in the house.

I'm going to keep them at 100% hydration for a few more days and then switch them to 50%. I want to see if I can expand them both enough to bake with them this weekend.

Hokey , When you want to branch out to other recipes, you might like to try Sourdough Pancakes, a recipe from my daughter, Nancy, when she was in college at Santa Cruz.  These are very nice. I also have a sourdough waffle recipe. Enjoy!

Basic Batter

 1 cup starter, 1 cup warm water, 1 1/4 -1 1/2 cups flour.  Put in large glass or pottery bowl and cover.  Put in warm spot. 

Night before prepare basic batter.   Next morning, add 1 egg, 2 Tbl. oil, 1/4 cup instant dry or evaporated milk.  Beat thoroughly. 

I've been learning how to bake breads the past month or so (without much luck with the artisan bread types). BUT, today I decided to try my hand at a Challah. Here is the pictures of the results. Needless to say I am extremely happy with this recipe! Great "crust and crumb" on this one! I LOVE Challah, and this one tops any I've had from the bakeries.

and cut: (excuse the darkness)