Blog posts

So I'm going to attempt to post more frequently, assuming my kids allow me the free time and I can get the photos to post. (As I type this the baby just knocked over my cup of coffee across the table)

hello everyone it's been awhile since my last post but I've still been baking 3-5 loaves a week and have been having more consistent results and I was quite happy with this bake. The formula was fairly simple:

I started the Levain with 20g active and ripe starter, fed 10g of my mother mix (80% AP, 15% WW, 5% RYE) and 10g H2O, then about 6 hrs later fed again 20g mix and 20g h20 and was left to rest until doubled (about 4 more hours).

After a long absence from baking due to visitors, travel and so on, I have gotten away from baking my own bread. With the winter months and some insanely cold weather in these parts it seemed like a good time to fire the oven up. I used 2 Tbs of dehydrated onion and enough water to make the dough plus some which will get absorbed. the soaking water was used in the dough -- of course! As I am in a very dry environment I upped the hydration to 70% and used a little more egg than recommended, but this dough made great tasting buns and was a dream to work.

The nights are getting colder here, my thoughts have been turning to overnight outdoor proofing schemes. 
For this bread, I started with a 45 min. autolyse, then minimal machine mixing in stages. The bulk  ferment was in the five hour range.
The loaves spent the night, seam down in baskets, and coved up inside of a large plastic box outside in the cold.
Outside the temp. dropped to +5c, I suspect that inside the box it was closer to +9.

Cari Amici,

volevo condividere con tutti voi questo delizioso dolcetto con il quale molto spesso io e la mia famiglia, facciamo colazione.

E' un prodotto dal gusto straordinario ed i colori dati dalla frutta secca e candita, ne rendono accattivante anche la presentazione.

Durante le festività natalizie è mia consuetudine metterli in sacchetti trasparenti, chiudere il tutto con un bel nastro e farne dono alle persone amiche.

Mi auguro che piaccia anche a tutti voi.

Vi auguro una buona giornata, a presto, Anna

Revisited this recipe which was posted on TFL by Dolf I believe.  I substituted 50:50 wholewheat:bread flour as I cant find white wholewheat flour.  I also reduced honey a little.  Very happy how it turned out. First time I have rolled top of loaf in grain too. 

Like others here I baked a few rounds of basic batards for use in stuffing and bread pudding.

They all used my wheat and rye starters and had a long fermentation. No pressure on these since they just cut all cut and set to dry for a couple days. Definitely improves the taste of things that requires some bread.

A month has blown by since the last time I posted here.  With good reason: we spent most of November in Europe visiting my wife's family.  

We had a couple of days in London:

The rest in Warszawa...

This bake was loosely based on Reinhart's recipe in his new book "Bread Revolution" however I wanted to tweak it for my personal tastes to make them more tasty and maybe just a touch healthier.  

For this recipe I have used sprouted spelt rather than wheat. Here are my other changes:

This is the kind of crumb that I LOVE.

I am not a fan of those big holes in the bread, after all, you can not eat holes ;)

I of course understand that taste differs.

Have a lovely Sunday and HAPPY BAKING.