Blog posts

Does anyone else struggle with naming their breads, or is it just me?

Anyway, this turned out really nice so I thought I'share it :)

I've been feeding my starter wit a mix of 70% whole wheat and 30% whole rye flour; and I've also been experimenting with sandwich loaves, so I thought why not mix both ideas? 

The general recipe is this:

Bread flour: 300 gr. (50%)

Whole wheat flour: 120 gr. (20%)

Whole rye flour: 180 gr. (30%)

Salt: 15 gr (2.5%)

Water: 500 gr. (83.3%)

Levain: 120 gr. (100% hidration) (20%)

This used a mix of my two starters - wheat and rye. Pretty straight forward with some sunflower seeds added for crunchy deliciousness.

      I was in the mood for a nice Durum loaf and figured I would use the Tangzhong method to lighten it up a bit.  I've used this method for rolls several times but not on an actual loaf.

I have to say this simple recipe turned out amazing with a nice thin crust and moist and open crumb.  This is one of those breads you can just eat with some butter or cheese or olive oil and call it a day.

I highly recommend you give this one a try.  It makes great toast, grilled bread and sandwiches or goes well with some "Italian Gravy"!

Am I the only one who takes some sort of idiotic pride in using the minimum amount of flour to get the job done -- and by job, I mean, having the dough release from the basket without ripping?  And by "idiotic pride" I mean, using too little and having my dough stick/rip on occasion because I put it in the basket somewhat sticky instead of adequately floured?

Happy Thanksgiving weekend to all the Canadians here!

We are having some friends over who've never had a turkey dinner and putting on the whole production with stuffing, sweet potatoes, and cranberries tomorrow.  I'd like to also bake rolls using Peter Reinhart's Wild Rice & Onion dough, which is still one of my all time favourites. 

* * * 

I don't have anything too exciting or interesting coming out of my oven these days. I've been baking once a week just to make sure we have enough bread to feed ourselves for the week. My storage starter is still doing great. It's been in the refrigerator for 8 weeks (unfed) and amazingly there's no sign of mold. Only a tiny bit of clear hooch is developing. Every Thursday evening, I take about 6-8 g starter and feed it once (usually about 1:3:3 or 1:3:4). I build my levain Friday morning and let it ferment while I'm at work. I mix my dough Friday night and bake on Saturday.

I was moved to post this after seeing dab's lovely nut apricot bread. This is a riff on isand66's date nut SD that he posted in the past. Here is quick review of how to put it together. I find I simplify more and more and the bread is just as good  . Here goes ! 

528g 100% hydration starter

autolyse for 1 hr:

100g spelt flour

250g durum flour

250g AP flour

422g whey ( or use milk if you have no whey)

We ground 3 times as much whole grain as we needed for the last bake so that we could test the notion that flour has to age after it is ground if not used in 24 hours.  So this bake has the whole grains as the last bake and the same add ins too.  The add ins have been hanging out in the fridge for a week.