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To prevent unsightly pinhole crumbs caused by excessive hydration of whole wheat flour, before I bake, I test the flour's absorption capacity by autolyzing it under different hydration levels and observing its gluten development. The hydration at which the dough starts to slack/tear is the bottom line for me to stop adding water to the dough. 

Our kitchen has been completely out of commission for a partial remodel (cabinet refacing, which required every cabinet and drawer be emptied and packed out of harms way) for the last 2 weeks. Things are put back together enough now that I got to bake today. Still using the toaster oven outside for now, until I can put the new oven through a few trial runs to verify temps and learn how to work it. 

I haven't made a miche in a very long time. Last week, I got a bag of high extraction ("Type 80") flour from Central Milling and remembered that I had previously (like 11 years ago!) used this kind of flour for a miche based on the San Francisco Baking Institute formula that I liked a lot. We had made this bread for the Artisan II (Sourdough) workshop. Although we used white flour, our instructor told us that, ideally, it would be made with a high-extraction flour. My experience indicates this formula makes delicious bead either way.

To learn more about concentrated lactic acid sourdough (CLAS), please see here and here. 

It must be the cooler weather that is encouraging more baking or perhaps the desire to check out breads that im going to be taking to functions or checking yeast quantities for timed yeasted doughs, but here is another. This is a dough using a mix called Super food blend from Aldi. i didnt make it a sweet dough as i envisage it being used on a cheese board at an 80 year old birthday celebration. happy with it but may end up making it into thinner sticks just right for cheese or plain butter. it should go well alongside the Parmesan and onion bread i did prior to this one 

I haven’t made a pizza in ages and had a hankering for sourdough pizza.  I’m made minor changes to how I ferment my sourdough pizza dough, I’ve realized that my pizza dough in the past had been underfermented.

Checking on the yeast quantities required for a 4 hour bulk fermentation 1.3% fresh compressed yeast seems to be about right The dough is a cheese and onion bread which i will be making again on the weekend for an 80th birthday celebration for one of my gym class mates

  5% raw brown onion and 10% shaved Parmesan cheese

Baked this earlier in the week. Pain De Campagne sourdough, using NYBakers Farine De Campagne flour. Came out GREAT! Lots of rise, and the crumb was amazing.

TFL'er bake list #4 this week, and this weekend's bake was Danni's Oat Porridge Bread.

A fun bake, and I learned a new technique by making a porridge.  The bread came out really good and has great flavor!  The crumb is nice and soft without being sticky.  Will definitely keep this one on the list.

Another savoury loaf, this time with a wild rice/exotic rice blend and dehydrated onions and a touch of honey. 

When I was mixing up the dough I noticed it was extremely soft. This was probably because I didn’t cook the rice the night before as per the recipe and that was probably a mistake as the rice ended up more hydrated than it should have. I added an extra 50 grams of flour to soak up some of the hydration. So word to the wise, make the rice the night before. 

Recipe 

Makes 3 loaves

700 g strong bakers unbleached flour + 50g