The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Corona staycation over

MTloaf's picture
MTloaf

Corona staycation over

Well as  I feared my sheltering in place Covid 19 baking staycation has ended because the job calls. I was enjoying the time to bake every few days unencumbered by work or much socialization. Our dogs and the cat, liked having a full-time doorman who gets the meals out on time. My wife is happy with some of the home repairs and shovel work that have that been completed and my neighbors are grateful for the bread deliveries. All this and a check in the mail. If it weren't for the fear of drawing the wrong breath of air it has been an enjoyable few weeks of semi-retirement practice.

I am consolidating my baking into a weekend which was the former way of doing it but seems slightly more hectic now. I started Friday night making the levains  for the sourdough breads and Approachable loaves. Saturday morning with snow falling heavily  in Montana,  which is a typical for Memorial Day weekend, I mixed them all including two batches of yeasted baguettes to retard overnight with the shaped sourdough loaves. The Approachable were rolled up with cinnamon and raisins and the top dusted with cinnamon al a Laurels Kitchen Bread Book. The smell coming from the oven in the afternoon is half the reward.

The sourdough loaves were baked first thing Sunday morning followed by the baguettes. I will probably throw some pizza dough together later today to use later in the work week. 

I have always loved the line from The Big Rock Candy Mountain song that goes "Where the hung the jerk that invented work"

Approachable C&R  sliced baggies

 

The recipe for the baguettes is the same Boubsa recipe I have used since finding it here at TFL

Baguettes up close

I may have left the baguette dough on the counter a little to long and they had grown a little too much overnight in the fridge and therefore the dough was a little delicate and sticky to handle. I shortened the proof a little too much and got maybe too much oven spring again and had some bursting along with a less open crumb. Just the little hyper critical issues that come with rolling and baking batons. Overall they came out better than expected.

Comments

Benito's picture
Benito

Gorgeous bakes MT, bravo.  Stay safe upon return to work.  I’ve had more time at home working but nothing like a staycation, still working full hours just some of it from home.

Benny

MTloaf's picture
MTloaf

We are relatively very safe here with low numbers for now but the upcoming tourism season is a looming threat. I worry more for people like yourself who are meeting it head on. I would be remiss if I didn't remind you that Alfanso and I are awaiting your picking up of the glove, in the baguette challenge. No purple though

Benito's picture
Benito

I wish I could get more consistency from my baking sourdough.  I sort of feel that I need to get that consistency before switching to other breads, maybe that is silly, but I hate the idea that I still have so many bakes that I’m not reading the fermentation well.  I do plan to try my hand at baguettes eventually though.  I may need some sort of peel to get them onto the baking steel in the oven.  I think I can use my pastry cloth as the couche.  Yes no purple I don’t need to complicate an already challenging new bake.

VRini's picture
VRini

Gorgeous baguettes and pan loaves. And the dark crust on the batards make me feel a little better about my dark loaves in this morning's bake. I have to get with it and start making sd baguettes. Thanks for sharing

MTloaf's picture
MTloaf

The baguettes are a yeasted version that I prefer to use, not only for the ease of working with but they also meet my idea of what a baton should be like. The Boubsa Baguette Recipe that I found here a few years back, has been a keystone in the passing of the baton so to speak. 

I prefer a full bake on my SD loaves. Some people get stuck on golden brown but as my wife will tell you I push things to the limit, enough said.

alfanso's picture
alfanso

So they say.  Not many to this once in a century madness.  But it had a lot of folks, beginners and "old hands" like you, baking up a storm.  And now that you've got the blog thang going don't stop.  Please.  There's plenty of inspiration out there for the Dutch Oven crowd, but we wee folk have to fight the tide with what is clearly yet another outstanding post like this one.  

I didn't pick up on home baking until well into retirement, so for me it will continue to be business as usual.  For those that trickle back into their former work lives again, it will be a curiosity as to how many caught the baking bug for real.  

Make sure that you carve out sufficient time to keep going and posting!  (asking for a friend...and all of TFL).

alan

PS If you're up for it, try Abel's Pain Viennoise, which will take your bread pan loaves to a completely different level.

MTloaf's picture
MTloaf

I wanted to do more than volunteer for the TFL sourdough starter help line. I have made only one starter and it has been working ever since in spite of not knowing what I was getting myself into. I decided to just bake and blog rather than make a guess at what’s wrong with someone else’s starter.
I would hope the bread making craze will take hold with most of the new enrollment. To paraphrase the late John Prine song  “The lonesome friends of science say the world will end most any day and if it does then that’s ok” I will have good bread any way!

MTloaf's picture
MTloaf

This is the full rack

rack of baggies

I think three slashes works better for the new shorties that go straight in the oven rather than sideways.

The crumb shows signs of being slightly  under proofed I think.

crumb

bread1965's picture
bread1965

Everything looks so good!!