Blog posts

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)

I just finished baking the Cinnamon Raisin bread from BBA. It had no oven spring at all. The only changes I made to the recipe...oops, formula, were to omit the walnuts and use whole wheat flour for 25% of the flour.

Well after reading some posts on here comparing different books recipes on a given bread, I gave one a test.

I have been using BBA's recipe for Poolish Ciabatta, with wonderful results in outward appearance.  The crumb was not as open as I hoped though.

This is Rosemary Olive Oil Sourdough from Nancy Silverton's book. I used the starter that I have been growing since Feb - my first one (not Nancy's formula) and I have to say I am proud of this little starter! Oven spring!

I tried the La Cloche top on a preheated stone for 20 minutes. I sprayed the top of the loaf and the inside of the La Cloche top when I put it in and boy did it get crispy!

I've been wanting to make this recipe for a couple of weeks, and finally made time for it tonight. The recipe is at:

http://www.theartisan.net/bredfrm.htm

I looked here for a recipe for pumpkin bread and all I found was the chemically leavened one and a link to a yeasted recipe that my computer wouldnt open :S

Monday night for me is a seasonal feast and we are eating all the seasonal vegies like pumpkin, squash, apples and corn. Kind of odd considering that in the northern hemisphere ya'll are eating that stuff in October/november. :) but, it IS Autunm turning winter down here in the deep deep south! (Aust)

Marcel's Grandmother's Potato Bread (Kartoffelbrot)

Marcel's Grandmother's Potato Bread (1)

Marcel's Grandmother's Potato Bread (2)

Marcel's Grandmother's Spelt Bread (1)

Marcel's Grandmother's Spelt Bread (2)

Marcel's Grandmother's Spelt Bread (Dinkelbrot)

And got a nice bit of baking out of the way since Monday. I re-activated my starter on Sunday afternoon and started making some doughs on Monday morning. The boules I had done on Tuesday, but wanted to see for myself if a longer fermentation really did result in blistering of the loaf. So..I retarded the doughs for the olive and pepper/cheese loaves in the fridge from Monday until this morning (wednesday) and cooked em off after forming them last night. AWESOME! Totally got the blistering I love so much. Here's a little chronicle.

The starter activated