Blog posts

I had a new brand of store bought guacamole in the refrigerator just calling for me to use it in a bread.  I made bread before with fresh avocados and I've been meaning to try it again with a higher percentage of avocados this time.

The pre-made guacamole had some tomatoes, peppers, cilantro and onions which ended up adding a nice kick to this bread.

Hello TFL,

while i am here on my computer, like to show of some pics of a little detail on the VT sourdough i hope you like it

On the bottom you see some Mult grain sourdough from the Bread book with a little personal touch.

This is version of a 5 seed bread from the bread book ( just seeds, Flax, sesame,poppy, sunflower, and pumpkin)

Just ate this one plain before the apprentice could get at it.

When we baked our version of hanseata's ungodly, great and wonderful bread, we said at the time that it was the best bread we have ever baked or tasted here:

These nice looking and good tasting rolls are some thing we normally don’t do since rolls are usually reserved for holidays and bread is served for dinner otherwise.  We wanted a 50% rye SD knotted roll that also used the WW Joe Ortiz cumin starter we like so much.   So we mixed together our standard rye starter and the WW Joe Ortiz one.  It sat in the fridge after the 8 hour build for 4 days while we decided what to do with it.  We probably should have refreshed it again but no time was available.

I have been working on developing a sourdough sandwich bread. I have taken my inspiration from recipes here on TFL and from King Arthur Flour. I finally settled on a formula that I am really happy with. The bread is soft with a tender crumb but the best part is the flavor. I used a starter to provide a very slight tang to the bread flour and added white whole wheat flour, golden flax meal, whole rye flour, and hi-maize cornmeal. I learned from Jeffrey Hamelman’s formulas that a small amount of an ingredient can have a big impact.

I have been on a bit of a country bread kick lately but I’m always trying to mix it up. For my latest variation I’ve replaced the typical 10% whole wheat flour in a country bread with 15% sprouted wheat.

Although I don’t have that much experience using sprouted grains it’s something that has always intrigued me. Mainly because of the purported health benefits but also because of the delicious flavor.

My wife bought a bottle of Chocolate Stout about a month ago with the intentions of making some kind of chocolate cake.  This would have been a very good use for this stout, but since she never had a chance to put it to good use I decided it was time to give it a try in a bread.  I recently purchased another new flour which I have since found out is a very old flour called Amaran

Yesterday I made Orange Marmalade with Single Malt Scotch. It's bursting with flavors: rabid orange with a slightly bitter tang, and subtle smokey undertones of peat smoked whiskey. No ordinary baguette's wheatiness could stand up to this flavor.

Concurrently, I was making sourdough levain for my refrigerated seed starter's refreshment; I simply made 300g extra.

Can anyone help? I am looking for a dough mixing machine up to 12 cups flour - too much to mix by hand and too much for my KitchenAid to handle. An equivalent of the Bosch Universasl Plus 800W (which is not for sale in Australia). I'm getting pretty desperate as I normally make 3-4 loaves at a time. I would be very grateful for any recommendations or advice anyone can offer. Thank you

A couple of days ago I decided to try my hand at Jeffrey Hamelman’s Vollkornbrot with flaxseeds.  I did this with some trepidation because

a)     I’m a western expat living in New Delhi, India and THE key ingredient (rye flour) is not available here, meaning that I have to bring it in from Europe on each trip.  This one recipe  would blow about 1/7 th of my precious supply.