Blog posts

This is my first post as my bread experience pales by comparison to so many contributors to the site. I feel that I really needed to share this. I have been looking for help here trying to get some guidance on how best to turn my new cheap Chinese pizza oven into a rockin' steam capable bread oven. So, after trying every conceivable trick found on this site and others ( except the pressure cooker hack)  I decided I needed to do something to make my bread making life easier and get scalded a little less often.

I've been working on my ciabattas lately and I think I'm finally getting the knack. Let me know what you guys think of my efforts - I truly appreciate your feedback, it helps me improve my skills. This is a poolish ciabatta, loosely based on the recipe seen in this video from Kingdom Bread. I cut his volume by half, giving me 4 fairly large loaves.. As you can plainly see by my crumb shots, this was a high hydration bake. I guess I should admit that I broke a couple of rules along the way.

Aug 31, 2021.

Goals here are to use 100% Patel brand stone-ground whole grain durum, 1.33% salt in order to have about 150 grams sodium per tortilla, and to use both commercial yeast and baking powder for a fluffier and softer tortilla. Salt is 39.34% sodium by weight.

I try to use  30 grams flour per tortilla, and then add a few grams to the batch because some dough gets lost along the way.

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For 5 tortillas:

152 grams Patel brand stone-ground whole grain durum, product of Canada. ($8 per 20 pound bag, $.40 per pound.)

I have a quest to improve the rise and softness of a 100% Whole-Wheat Sandwich Bread. This is the third time baking this and I have been tweaking the formula with each attempt. There has been a gradual improvement with each bake and this time I got a good rise, soft crumb, and wonderful flavour. Debra Wink has graciously given her advice and ideas given that it is her recipe in Hamelman’s 3rd Edition of Bread.

After seeing so many beautiful creative babkas for the community bake, I decided to give it a try. I read through Melissa Clark's recipe (at the end of this post) and decided maybe I can try 1 loaf with a chocolate mousse filling - this mousse is good on its own too, I smother each slice of the babka with more of this!




Dough
30g milk
30g orange juice
2 large eggs
150g all purpose flour
100g Kamut flour
30g sugar
4g salt
3g instant yeast

 Saw this made in one of those French bakery videos and thought, wait a minute, even I can do that!! I made a relatively small batch of baguette dough and voila!!

This is the bread I am going to bring our friends who we are seeing for the first time in over a year.  They do seem to prefer a softer bread so what better than a sourdough Hokkaido milk bread with Tangzhong.  This is the second time I am making this bread and I hope they enjoy it.

The recipe that follows is for a 9”x4”x4” Pullman pan open.

Ingredients

Sweet Stiff Starter 

• 53g bread flour 

• 24g water 

• 18g light brown sugar 

• 18g sourdough starter ~100% hydration 

Haven't posted anything lately, but that doesn't mean I haven't been baking!! Baguettes galore, Ciabattas, and crazy different fruit and nut sourdough breads including Blueberry Pecan and Apricot Walnut! On tonight's menu, one of my favorite "treats", the erstwhile New York style Bialy topped with everything mix and onions! I prepared a Pâte Fermentée in advance and refrigerated overnight, which definitely added some extra nice flavor to the finished product. Fairly typical preparation, bake in a 500F oven for approx 12 - 14 minutes.

I just finished reading an advance copy of Eric Pallant's Sourdough Culture, which is coming out in a couple of weeks.