Blog posts

I have started feeding my levain with semolina. I had forgotten how much it loves it... grows so fast triples in a couple hours. This is another 1-2-3  tripled with additional water . I don’t measure but probably 100 g . The barley ,I think, is responsible for the incredible taste of the last bake and the color of the finished bread. Will report when it is cut. 

300g 100% hydration semolina fed levain

https://www.saveur.com/vote-2018-saveur-blog-awards

You can vote every day

  It's been too long since I made some bialys.  Bialys seem to be the forgotten stepchild of bagels it seems :).  My original formula and procedure is here.

Fry something of course - two somewhat cruller looking crullers - these are #5 and 6. First four got consumed already.  I been a little worried my oven is going to explode since it caught on fire recently and so couldn't resist mixing up a quick choux and crafting a makeshift piping nozzle out of a plastic mini containers. Turned out ok - better than sulking all day - happy baking and thank the powers if you haven't killed your oven ;)

I was in London yesterday and at Linas Stores they had this very nice Italian 00 pizza flour which I understand is low in protein and gluten but might give me a lovely crunchy crust....(thank you again for the tip Abe, but they did not have the durum anymore.....)

So, I worked with Matteo Festo's low gluten formula as in his book Natural Leavenings and the key difference to my normal process was that he uses much more leaven to speed up the bulk and only a very short rest for the dough after mixing with leaven and then adding the salt.

Hello friends!!

I hope everyone had a great weekend :)

Oat Flax and Sprouted Barley Sourdough

TFLers have blogged before about the therapeutic benefits of baking bread - this has been my daily bread over the past few months, nourishment for body and spirit in challenging times, my therapy....

For years and years, we go to one of the local country fairs where we go and check out the entries for veggies, baking, etc. And the last couple of years, my daughter says that she is sure we could do better than some of the entries. Well, we will see since she twisted my arm and got us entered. I made a variation of Maurizio's 50% wholewheat sourdough and his Raisin Fennel Sourdough, and she made Nana's Oatmeal cookies, a lemon Meringue pie and a French Yogurt Blueberry cake with Glaze. Here are the recipes:

6 Grains Whole Wheat Sourdough