Bake real sourdough - Easy step by step instructions.
Bread Baking Courses
When I was young, there was a bakery in town that specialized in a Cheese Onion loaf. It was a soft, white crumb studded with melted cheese pockets and caramelized onions chunks. The bread was a sought after item and you could smell it baking from far off. READ MORE »
I have a dear friend who is fighting cancer. The chemo treatments leave her unable to eat much but she loves eating my sourdough bread. So I have formulated this bread just for her. It is the white counterpart to Pink Wig bread which was also formulated for a woman fighting cancer (it is a whole wheat version). READ MORE »
This is a variation for an old recipe called Latvian Apple Cake. What is so cool about this recipe is that you can substitute just about any fruit and make a terrific dessert. Think pear cranberry, blueberry, peaches, mixed berries, plum pear, apple cranberry, etc. It is an easy elegant dessert and it tastes delicious! READ MORE »
I baked up a Sourdough Ginger cake in a bundt pan to take to a get together. This recipe is a variation on my Sourdough Gingerbread cake. Baking it in a bundt pan had the effect of making the cake more dense. READ MORE »
It was one year ago that I came to live in the San Juan Islands. So much has happened since then. I got a chance to bake commercially in a local bakery. Unfortunately the bakery shut down and I am looking for a job. READ MORE »
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)
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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.
Pain Au Levain
I received a new starter from a woman in Macairiere Boulogne, France. She wanted to remain nameless, but I do want to thank her for her wonderful French sourdough starter. I made the Pumpkin Sourdough in the preceeding blog with it. It is a midrange sour flavored,robust, five hour proofing starter (medium range proof). I thought it would be great to bake up some French Bread with it so I modified a formula from Raymond Calvels book “The Taste of Bread”. read more
