Blog posts

Every year my parents receive many gifts of mooncakes in the days leading up to the Mid-Autumn Festival. Most of the time they are the traditional mooncakes filled with lotus seed paste and salted egg yolks. I thought I would try baking a different sort of mooncake to bring to my family's gathering. I call them American-style mooncakes. I made a trail mix inspired one and a coconut one. Mooncakes need to be baked at least a day (and preferably 2 days) before serving. Freshly baked ones do not have the correct texture since the pastry shell is still too crispy.

Bonjour tout le monde,

So, after an almost 2 year hiatus on baking I finally am back in the game. This is my first bake since that time so long ago, so critique it to death. Dusting off those old skills is no easy feat, but manageable. Anyways, I followed this recipe to the p, not quite the t because I changed some minute details:

I've been wanting to do this for a few months now, since we are living in a yurt and the only oven I have is a Coleman 12 inch square oven that sits on a burner of our 2 burner Primus camp stove.  I finally got up the nerve to try the San Joaquin Sourdough formula from Dave Snyder in our 'primitive' digs here on Orcas Island.    

In the swing of the bread thing now.  

i Kick these babies out like clockwork.

It's really very simple, so simple that I tended to overthink it.

70% h2O

2% NaCl (salt)

to bring the flour to 100%, depending on what I have in the drawer:

30% semolina -I try never to run out of semolina love it 

40% All Purpose - AP makes a fine loaf if thats all that's around.

10% rye - this is kinda nice when it's available,

20% bread flour- this fluctuates. 

A 20% starter at 100% hydration kicks things off. 

When on the breath of autumn breeze,

From pastures dry and brown,

Goes floating like an idle thought

The fair white thistle-down,

Oh then what joy to walk at will

Upon the golden harvest hill!

What joy in dreamy ease to lie

Amid a field new shorn,

And see all round on sun-lit slopes

The pil’d-up stacks of corn;

And send the fancy wandering o’er

All pleasant harvest-fields of yore.

This is a exciting time for me because there is so much to learn about making bread.

I am learning about The Fresh Loaf after I found a book by Richard Bertinet.

The handbook is helping as well. I have made a few loaves and pizzas, and just starting my first sourdough experiments. My plan is to have some lessons as soon as I can.

Is your site able to direct me to other home bakers in Melbourne, because there are so many variables I am looking for some experience. Is there a book works well in Australia ie brands and grams?

Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending the 2014 Grain Gathering in Mt Vernon, Washington.

Formerly known as the Kneading Conference West, the Grain Gathering is the preeminent gathering of bakers, millers, farmers, malters, and breeders in the Pacific Northwest.

Odd as it may sound, I did not decide yet what my “go to bread” recipe is , and to rectify that I searched all bread books that I own to sort out the favorite recipe, and came across one I haven’t tried: Whole Wheat Bread from Tartine. I followed the recipe, including cold overnight fermentation of the shaped loaves.  The loaves spent their night in a floured couche in the fridge, but ended up sticking so I had to pry them out the next morning (Note to self: do not underestimate the importance of rice flour while dusting your couche).

Quick post showing this mornings croissants freshly baked.

My SD starter lievito madre responsible for raising these delights.

egg washed

As a number of you know, I have experimented with freezing dough and baking it later.  I have had some recent mixed results, and I thought I would share it to see if there are some things to learn from my experience. Recently, I made a wonderful Tartine sourdough with olives, herbes de provence and lemon zest, recipe link below.  I froze the second loaf to bake later, and I baked it in the last few days.  It was terrible--a flat, gummy disk.