Hearth Bread
Sourdough Focaccia
May 18, 2013This is a fun weekend bread. 100% white flour; in the case Central Milling Tipo 00. Lets try this time sourdough focaccia I pulled off 180 grams of my starter (and fed it) around noon, and built it up to a 300 gram/72% hydration focaccia formula. By the math, the starter was 80 grams of flour and 100 grams of water, so to finish the dough I added 220 grams... Read More
First Bread from Newest Sourdough Culture
May 16, 2013According to the instructions, it would take five days to building before my new culture would be capable of developing bread. But rather than throw away the cup of starter (about 200 grams) when I divided it and fed it, I decided to add 150 grams of whole wheat flour, 5 grams of salt and a little honey, olive oil and water. What the heck; what’s there to lose. And... Read More
The Sourdough Starter. It’s Alive!
May 15, 2013The Sourdough Starter. It’s Alive! It’s bubbling and starting to develop a nice tart smell. The sourdough starter was sent dried in a small zip lock bag. The instructions are to resuscitate it with 1/2 cup of warm water and 1/2 cup of flour the first and second days to bring it back to life. Now that it is active, I will pull off one cup of the starter and... Read More
Whole Wheat Focaccia
May 13, 2013Here are a couple of photos of my first attempt at making whole wheat focaccia and Community Grain whole wheat flour. It came out nicely though it might have benefitted from a long bulk fermentation and a slightly longer final proofing. And to confirm. The Community Grains whole wheat is great. Excellent. Wonderful. Read More
Focaccia a Health Food?
May 13, 2013I really like Focaccia. But there are times when I find myself thinking of it more as a weekend treat than a day-to-day staple. But today, there was a very fun article in the NY Times that may change all of that. I wish I had though of this myself. From the Health section of the paper — Focaccia: One Basic Bread, Endless Delicious Options: Whole-Wheat Focaccia The article not... Read More
Trader Joe’s and Whole Wheat Sourdough
May 13, 2013Armed with the new knowledge that sourdough bread is easier to digest, lowers your insulin reaction to carbs, and might increase your body’s ability to absorb nutrients from the flour, I went to Trader Joe’s to check out their sourdough selection. Of course we all know that whole wheat flour is much, much better than white flour. What I found was not good. TJ’s has whole wheat yeast bread and... Read More
Sourdough Starter. Started.
May 13, 2013I bought a “Northern Italian” sourdough starter and started it. In the past, I have created my own starter using fresh, organic fruit, but I decided to play it safe. It should become active/alive in about 2-3 days (it’s supposed to be cool here, which will slow development down), then it needs another 3-4 days of dividing and feeding to develop to where it can make bread. I’m looking forward... Read More
This Banana Bread is Hiding the Healthy Stuff
May 10, 2013There has been a lot written recently by Mark Bittman, Michael Pollan and others about how important it is that our society reclaim some control over what we eat from the big multinationals by cooking at home more. Which makes a lot of sense. The theory is that big business has taught us that cooking is drudgery, better left to the nation’s fast food companies, but that in reality cooking... Read More
A Pretty Good Baguette
May 09, 2013I think the biggest lesson learned with this baguette is to be patient and actually use a timer to make sure I give the shaped loaves a final proof of a full 90 minutes — that and planning far enough ahead so that I can give the bread the time it needs and still be ready for dinner. The dough was not fermented overnight (bad on me). It was... Read More
