Over the New Year holidays, I moved to the San Juan Islands. It has been a two year journey for me from an abusive situation, a divorce and now starting over. Continue reading A New Year, a New Life
Sourdough Wreaths
Here is a neat shaping technique for dough that will enable you to end up with beautiful Christmas wreaths to give for gifts or showcase your buffet table. You can follow any recipe that will produce about 1.5 lbs of dough, as each wreath is 1.5 lbs each. You can also use any filling that suits your fancy. Some ideas would be pecans and chopped apples, preserves, chopped dates, figs and walnuts, cherries, dried cranberries, blueberries, etc.
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Brod and Taylor sent several of us online blogging bakers their new Folding Bread Proofer. I was one of them. My Technical Administrator on the Sourdough Forum and I were talking about jerry rigging our own proofer before I received notice from Brod and Taylor about testing their new proofer.
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Wow, did this bread ever smell great, in dough form, while baking and … while eating! It is at it’s best once cooled and given some time to mellow.
I got the inspiration for the chocolate cinnamon blend from Peter Reinhart’s bread, Chocolate Cinnamon Babka, see my post here: http://www.northwestsourdough.com/discover/?p=900 from his book, Artisan Breads Every Day. I loved that blend of flavors, chocolate and cinnamon.
There is a new addition to my Magnificent Sourdough page. Baker Judd Friedman’s bread, Pain de Campagne is showcased.
Sweet Potato Muffins
It’s that time of year where baking of squash, sweet potaoes (and/or yams) and other such autumn treats are pretty standard fare, especially around Thanksgiving. This recipe features leftover baked sweet potatoes baked up into muffins. You can substitute any veggie with a similar texture such as those mentioned above. I like using up my extra starter instead of tossing it whenever I can and these yummy tender treats will help you do just that.
Those of you who like to bake without thinking about what’s behind it… might want to skip this post….
This is a follow up experiment to the post Experiments with Autolyse #1 (length of autolyse)
To autolyse means to give your dough a rest period after mixing and before adding the salt to the dough. Professor Raymond Calvel pioneered this dough development stage which helped produce superior bread. When the flour and water are combined, the gluten strands are hydrated and begin to bond. Enzymes are activated and they begin their work on the dough. One of the enzymes called Protease when activated, starts to break down or digest the gluten strands. You might think this would ruin your gluten network that you are trying to build up, but used properly on the right kind of dough using the right flour, you can direct the outcome of the bread in different ways.
Experiments with Autolyse (Autolysis)
Click here for a PDF version of this article.
Click here for a printable PDF version with no photos.
An autolyse stage, as used in the making of bread, was first introduced by Professor Raymond Calvel. He noticed that when the dough was given a chance to hydrate when first mixed without the addition of salt (or other ingredients besides flour and water), it produced a superior outcome in the final bread.
Visiting with some of my family:
My niece, Dominica with her daughter, Mattie and their new puppy
I have been busy and haven’t posted or baked much lately. However I always seem to be thinking about sourdough anyway. While visiting family in California, I came upon some “California Sourdough” baked in the Midwest and shipped to the coast. I think it should have read, “Midwest Sourdough.” I decided to pass on it. I would like to find more local Artisan sourdough style breads to review.
The credit for this bread goes to a man dear to my heart. He does not know lime is one of my favorite flavors. He came up with the idea the weekend we met and we worked on it together, so it will be a favorite of mine from now on. It is unusual and quite delicious.
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