Blog posts

After last week’s Cosmic Calamity, Lucy has settled back down to her normal self but had to have a beer to celebrate her notoriety as the center of the universe even if only for one day.  She has an affinity for darker beers and decided that Deschutes Black Butte Porter was perfect, not only for celebrating but for bread making too.

I used to make the buttermilk bread from the Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book as our everyday sandwich bread, but then I discovered an overnight fermentation recipe and the colour, texture, and taste are so much better, I don't think I can ever go back to an all-in-one-day bread recipe.

After mostly making levain breads from Hamelman's bread, I decided to try Ken Forkish's approach which is quite a bit different.  I had made bread using the Dutch oven technique a long time ago when the method was popularized. It seemed like everyone was jumping on the band wagon. A number of books came out with variations on that technique. What I noticed was that for the most part the recipes were white breads with some subtle flavor additives, and I have always favored breads with a fair amount of whole grains.

This was an experimental loaf. As the weather gets cold I am testing time and temperature.

The idea here was to increase the ratio of rye starter to wheat starter to 2:1 - this was mostly to give it a stronger fuller flavor - that worked. I also let this bulk ferment for about 24 hours. The amount of time out of the fridge is the variable since "room temperature" is definitely different than it was a few months ago.

This formula is for one loaf but I continually get enough rise and spring to actually bake two good sized loaves.

  If I could only eat 3 things, 1 of them would be cheese, the other bread and the third I'm not so sure. There is nothing that smells so good as bread baking with cheese oozing out of it.

Continuing my exploration of sprouted flour I decided to make a porridge bread using freshly ground and sprouted whole wheat for around 36% of the flour with the balance being KAF European style and AP from the levain.

This is another take on Norm's onion buns, one of my favourite recipes on TFL. Previoously I used 2 Tbs dehydrated onion and this time added 1 Tbs granulated dehydrated garlic and re-hydrated both in hot water. The soaking water was of course used in mixing the dough. 

Buy did these ever smell good baking! They also have a great flavour and snap to the crust and a nice open crumb. I got the proofing right this time and the buns rose to a more normal size than my last bake. Thanks Bonni!!!

The garlic adds an extra kick to an already outstanding recipe!

Thats a very subtle play on Bread Resolution in case you missed that :)

I am putting together a plan of new breads to try out next year - 1 bread a month - can't get any simpler than that. 

Read here about my plans and please join me in baking, I would love to see your photos and hear your comments 

HP

The plan for this loaf started out to be the Overnight Country Brown, from Flour Water Salt Yeast.  However, I ran out of all purpose flour and made up the difference with whole wheat from my red winter wheat berries freshly milled for the occasion.

For the flours, I autolyzed 200 grams KA AP flour with 680 grams of the whole wheat flour.  I decided to use 699 grams of water and that seemed just about right for moistening all of the flour. After an hour or so, I added 22 grams of salt and the levain.

I'm a believer biscotti lends itself as well to savory versions as it does sweet versions. Unfortunately, there are few savory recipes to be found.  I've been making a romano and black-pepper biscotti for a couple of years.  It's my adaptation of a parmigiano and black-pepper recipe I found online. I've been thinking of other savory combinations since, but haven't acted on them: until today.

This is a bacon-chedder combination baked today. The recipe is mine.

Bacon-Chedder Biscotti

250g AP flour, unsifted

2 tsp Baking powder

1 tsp salt