Blog posts

We, counting my fine apprentice,  have wanted for some time to make an olive bread that was loosely based on Nancy Silverman’s fine loaf that she did with Julia Child on Baking With The Masters.  But, since the girls at home despise olives except for olive oil, this want has gone unfulfilled for what seems like forever.

On a flying visit to Dorset my family and I stopped off in Sturminster Newton to take a tour around the water mill. Wonderful! A very informative and interesting tour provided by delightfully friendly staff reminded us of times gone by. Fully automated machinery that is surprisingly old for the ingenuity. I highly recommend this tour.

I am retired. This is the first full week since I retired, July 31. Already I see big problems. I no longer have to limit my baking to weekends and vacations. In principle, I could be baking bread any day ... or every day. But, I do not need to be eating more bread than I have been eating. I will certainly be gifting more loaves, but I have to find a new equilibrium. Ah, well. Life is good.

Anyway, this explains how I happen to be baking bread mid-week. 

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We had some yeast water and SD Desem starter left over from our 'Bun Experiment' yesterday where we compared YW with SD in buns.  We were going to use them up with a combo starter to make the same buns but we have too many buns after yesterday.

From left: poppy and not your usual; nigella and basil seeds.

This week, I have been reading Sandor Katz's wonderful book, The Art of Fermentation. For most part, the book is not about bread, but as bread is mostly about fermentation, the book is helping me a lot in understanding what happens in the dough   and when growing yeasts.

Last night as I was reading the book again, I had a revelation: you can drink yeast water. And in fact, a lot of people are doing it already--they just have a different name for the drink!