Blog posts

This week’s bake was inspired by Dab’s 3 starter Italian olive bread with rosemary and sun dried tomato. I love pizza and this loaf sounded like a pizza so I couldn’t help but try it and hope it turned out half as good.

I changed some of the proportions from the original formula (more whole grain, more sun dried tomatoes, less olives and more rosemary):

I've been working on this recipe for about 5 weeks now, I think this is loaf #11. It has finally started coming together like I want. 20% sprouted rye sourdough, 35% sprouted hard red wheat sourdough starter, 45% KABF, 75% hydration. I'm doing another couple of loaves on Sunday repeating this recipe, if I'm still happy with it then I'll do a detailed post.

As you know, Lucy’s definition of white bread is very specific.  Anything less than 50% whole grain flour is a white bread.  This one, depending on how you classify it, is a white bread at 38% whole grains or a 70% sprouted whole grain bread.

I've been yearning for some real Artisan bread, but fate seems to have it some other way. Sadly, plans to start a Bakery have taken a detour, as things did not work out. Among other reasons, lack of sufficient funds and professional experience, have  taken a toll at last. It was time to move back with the family to my Native Lebanon.

Another fun-filled weekend... Thank you again, Sjadad and Ian, couldn't have done it without your help and inspiration!

Now we are talking about REAL pizzas...from my grill!

 Its been a year since i took up retirement and quite truthfully i've never been busier, but i do recommend it.

I actually got around to doing some baking, my sour dough stockpile back at my old work place had all been used up in my abscence and none saved for the future, which was a shame as it had been going for quite a few years now.

      Last week I took a few days off for vacation and my wife and I decided to do a day trip to the Mecca of baking King Arthur Flour in Vermont.  It was a fun and long trip starting out with the delay on the ferry ride due to a backpack that nobody wanted to claim.

In any case we had a great day and visited a couple of cheese and maple syrup shops as well.

I recently had a friend visit from Scotland , Peter originally  came from the same small Hampshire village of  LISS that i grew up in . In fact Peter and his wife Hazel both came from the same village. they moved to Scotland after graduating from Uni and have worked there ever since.

Last week, I participated in the Nelson Mandela Challenge Bake and ended up with a delicious if dense bread. We were not eating it very quickly so I decided to turn it into crackers. The density was right and with a few minutes in a 350F convection oven, my dense bread turned into delicious Cranberry and Pumpkin Seed crackers.

Sometimes you get tired of the big loaves and fancy something smaller, a housing for a cheese sandwich or a bacon butty. Here’s a selection of some of my favourite bread rolls, in no particular order...