Blog posts

   I had not made a porridge bread in a little while, and I've been loving adding freshly ground barley to my bakes, so here we are.  I thought freshly ground Kamut would make a nice combination with the barley and I was not mistaken.

I added some polenta I ground from the purple corn I recently purchased with some rolled oats to make a porridge and added some caramelized onions I had leftover in the main dough for good measure.

I was very happy with the flavor profile on this one and the nice moist and tasty crumb as well.

This was my first attempt at the FWSY 80% biga. As usual I made the dough using 25% whole wheat, I reduced the water temperature given the temperature of my apartment, and slightly reduced the proofing time. Given the lack of oven spring and tighter crumb structure, maybe I should reduce the proof time further? It tasted good, but definitely room for improvement. Is a good rule of thumbs for FWSY to end the bulk ferment when the dough is 2x the original volume? 

This loaf was made with CLAS, whey, mashed potatoes, lard, spices (coriander, caraway, and fennel seeds), and 100% home-milled rye flour. 

Thank you, Rus!

CLAS after refreshment, pH 3.4

Hi TFLers! Long time no hear! I've been very busy adjusting to my new career that I seldom bake and post. I hope you still remember me. I made this simple flatbread for my birthday and I paired it with homemade charcuterie (sausages in particular). It feels like a very European thing to do but since no one drinks wine or alcohol in our household, we just washed it down freshly squeezed calamansi juice and hot chocolate.

I am a sucker for fruit breads and decided to try this one. I would highly recommend this recipe, but I had a real issue getting the fruit to be well-dispersed. All of the fruit seem to be on the very top of the loaf which was frustrating. I didn't have fresh yeast so I used 1/2 tsp of instant and then 1/3 cup of fed sourdough starter. I put 5g of starter in the overnight pre-ferment and the rest when I mixed the dough the next day. I decided to make 2 smaller loaves. 

I got a copy of FWSY a few weeks ago and this was my first attempt at making a levain. My previous 3 efforts all used biga or poolish pre-ferment. I stuck to the recipe, but reduced the proof times somewhat given recommendations on this site and the temperature of my apartment (about 82 degrees). I also used about 75 degree water instead of the 90 degrees recommended since my home was warm. I also reduced the amount of instant yeast from the recommended 1/2 tsp to 1/4 tsp and increased the amount of whole wheat flour to 20% of the total flour used.

Alan posted delicious looking cinnamon raisin batards (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/60371/maurizios-cinnamon-raisin-levain-baguettes) so I had to jump on the bandwagon too. I scaled up the original recipe from Maurizio to make three boules of my usual size which is usually around 1100 g of flour. 

 The challenge for this weekend: Vollkornbrot from Jeffrey Hamelman’s Bread. This is one of my favorite recipes because it’s surprisingly low maintenance for rye bread, and the results are fantastic. 

My weekly bake this week, and I decided to go back to my favorite flour mix - 10% WW, 10% Semolina, and 5% Rye.  Of course, the WW % is actually higher since I feed my starter with WW flour, but you get the idea! :)  I tried very hard to be as gentle as possible with my stretching, folding, and I like the results thus far (still cooling, so haven't cut into them.)  In particular, I think these loaves seemed to hold their shape after being removed from the bannetons better than any loaves I have made before.  Here are the particulars, and some pics.....

I have 4 bins of "wheat" in the pantry. They are all fresh from the vendor, at a moisture content of ~11%. If I take samples of each, mill them, and mix each sample to the same hydration, the result will range from a "brick" (Kamut) to "soup" (spelt).