Blog posts

I issued myself a challenge (posted here in the Challenge forum) to see what kind of fun I could have with a simple 123 method sourdough. In other words, 1 part fresh starter, 2 parts water (or other liquid) and 3 parts flour. Also, a customer had asked me to create a 'sweet' version of my Three Friends Levain (Tom[ato], Olive and Rosemary) that she could have with peanut butter and jam. So, a double challenge!

Not to be complete and comprehensive and certainly not to be pedantic, but I decided to list a set of my own do and don’t “baking rules”.  I expect no one to take any/some/all of these to heart or put into practice - least of all because I say I do them.  None of these are absolute, but in general, they serve as my personal list of commandments – at least around dough and baking.
  
We have, will develop and hopefully forever evolve our own individual set of rhythms and axioms for what works best for each of us.  There is probably no “one size fits all”.

It was a super busy weekend: I was also making a few other things besides Joze's cranberry tarragon bread...

Homemade taco styled by my younger son...

It's super delicious!

What a sweet man...

We put our hearts and souls in the dough....

My Lexi

This weekend's bake was a bread with honey in it. I decided to try to get a honey swirl in my bread by flattening the dough, smearing some honey on it and rolling it up. Since honey is 17% water, I thought I'd make a paste to equal the hydration of the dough.

These are my attempt at black rye rolls, again from Beth Hensperger's The Bread Bible.* I thought I wouldn't have enough rye flour but then I did -- phew!

I consider these rolls a success, cracks and all, for several reasons: 

First, this was only my second time working with rye flour, and I almost didn't have enough. 

Risking being struck by lightning from the Dark Side, Lucy came up with another white bread this week.  This one was bit different since it had 20% pre-fermented flour – in the summer – twice as much as usual.  It also had a 1 hour bulk ferment before shaping and no retard of the dough two additionally unusual processes.

Okay, so I'm playing fast and loose with the name.  It is actually a durum with rye levain.  Which has its roots in  TFL's whirlwind tour this past Spring of the bread within the high walls of Altamura in Apulia Italy, and David Snyder's formula.  I thought about this a few days ago when I posted my question: at what point does dough become bread? and used pictures from my completely untraditional and blasphemous shaping of the bread, used kinda as a demo of the before, during and after.

A friend gave me the recipe. I replaced the raisins with cranberries and cut the loaves in half lengthwise to end up with a square shape. Notes in brackets are mine. 

Rosemary Raisin Pecan Crisps

2 cups flour (I used Robin Hood Best for Bread Multigrain)
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cups buttermilk
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
1 cup raisins (Cranberries)
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup roasted pumpkin seeds 
1/4 cup sesame seeds
1/4 cup flax seed, ground
1 Tbsp. chopped fresh rosemary