Blog posts

11/3/2014: A recent TFL forum post inspired me to think about ways to keep your starter warm. 

Maintaining a warm temperature is extremely important to establishing a new starter. If you maintain your initial starter temperature at 82-86F, this will lead to the production of more lactobacillus than yeast, meaning a more sour/acid environment, which is important to establishing a healthy yeast and bacteria colony in your starter, especially at the beginning. 

Cari amici, vi lascio ONU dolce assaggio dell'autunno della Toscana .....

A presto, Anna

A couple of weekends ago, I was doing some test bakes to finalize recipes for a class that I will teach in December.

First up, Julekake, glossy with egg wash:

And the Julekake crumb:

And it tastes even better than it looks, what with the fruit and cardamom flavors.

Modena Mountain Bread

Pane Montanaro

from

The Splendid Table: Recipes from Emilia-Romagna, the Heartland of Northern Italian Food

by

Lynn Rossetto Kasper

And how!

50% sprouted wheat (commercial) and 50% BF, 80% hydration, 20% starter (100% hydration), 2% salt, 12% sprouted grain. 40 minute autolyse (flours and water only), slap and folds x 6, 1 and 1 minutes, then 3 sets of stretch and folds at 20-30 minutes apart. The dough was beautiful, smooth, supple, elastic.

Covered and into the refrigerator for the night, where it rose maybe 50%. Pulled it out and cranked the oven to the max (500 F+) to preheat while I preshaped, then shaped a tight boule.

I'm writing this well after making this loaf last week or thereabouts.  Unlike so many of you, I'm boring in my bread tastes, I don't really want to make lots of different varieties, as long as I make this particular loaf and have it on hand for egg sandwiches, I'm reasonably happy.  I do use sourdough in it, as it tastes better with mustard and egg, than when it's made only with sweet yeast.

I have baked Pumpkin Pain De Mie and Pumpkin and Pepita Rustic bread for Halloween, and two batches of Pretzel.

Never having baked, tasted or even seen these skinny loaves before now their shape is my best guess based on Stan's instructions.

I may not have got the shape right, but I'm sure I got the recipe right. They are loaded with flavors! We're planning a small get together with friends to eat these; each guest will bring a dip or spread they think appropriate for rye. I'm making a roasted beet, yogurt, bleu cheese and bacon dip.

Crumb.

David G

I often ask for requests but seldom get one.  "Oh whatever you want to make" is the most common.  This time around the lovely lady requested a Sour Wheat bread.  I was thrilled.  I decided I'd build a new formula just for this/her.  And since I'm so happy with the results I thought I'd share.  A note on how my spreadsheet functions.  The

People often criticize the Forkish method of managing one's starter.  For example, if you were to make his double-fed sweet levain according to his instructions, you would throw away everything but 50 grams of your starter that you fed 24 hours ago, feed it 250 grams of flour and (200 grams of water) for a total of 450 grams of levain.