Blog posts

At the one of the local bulk stores, I came across some barley flakes. I had been wanting to try barley based on Ian’s porridge breads so barley flakes came home with me. I love cranberries (as if you didn’t know by now) so cranberries were something that needed to be added. Searching TFL for a fruit/barley recipe, I came across a recipe from 2014 by Emkay: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/39217/so-many-apricots-and-barley-porridge-apricot-bread.

I've found the more I bake the more I realise what I don't know - like with everything in life...

After a number of bakes where I lacked oven spring and experimented with different flours...I've been given some brilliant advice to  go back to lower hydration and see what happens....So I tried Trevor's 65% hydration loaf but WITHOUT THE OVERNIGHT premix as I know that this totally degrades my weak UK flour from the Champlain bakes.

My sister recently bought a house in Portugal. That got me interested in Portuguese breads and I discovered their treasure trove of breads. For the next few weeks I will be baking breads from that little sunny land and aided by Miguel Forte's blog on Portuguese breads.  Bolo do Caco is from the Islands of Madeira. They are made with a sourdough starter and contains sweet potato. Traditionally baked on a slab over an open fire, mine was cooked in a dry skillet on the stove over a very low heat.

Hubby went through the weekend loaf in no time and there is no bread in the freezer so I needed to do a mid week bake. I based this bake on Edo Bread’s Small Daily Loaves which is basically a 1:2:3 type of loaf. http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/56031/small-daily-loaves

DanAyo"s recent post prompted a response by Trevor Wilson.

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/56018/acedic-vs-lactic-flavor

So time to give this a shot, see if I could do a long warm fermentation such as Trevor suggested without the dough degrading and see what effect it has on flavour.

Sunday morning:  Refresh my mother starter (basically a 1:2:3)  which lives in the fridge. 

Sunday evening: Refresh again keeping to this ratio, making a bit more than I required.

We have sausages and hamburger burning a hole in our freezer but we needed buns for both. This recipe makes the best buns especially if you make it like Lucy does.

This sourdough loaf owes its colour to activated charcoal. I discovered this bread and heaps of information on the use of charcoal on Bake-Street.com and could not resist. My dough did not look dark enough to me. I thought it resembled window putty so I added 1/2 gram extra charcoal. I still thought it was too light but resisted the temptation to add black food colouring. It turned quite dark during baking, so I need not have worried. It is a tasty loaf with a good crust and soft as a cloud inside.