Hearth Bread
Getting Organized
Sep 07, 2012Time for some time-and-motion organizing. Every minute counts when you are making bread nearly every day, so I have ordered some Oxo storage containers. That way, I will always know where everything is, it will be easy to use and I won’t spill as much — meaning I won’t have to do as much clean up. Don’t you find that you are always pouring flour all over the place when... Read More
Another Day, Another Over-Proofed Loaf
Sep 05, 2012The upside of this is that I haven’t made this mistake for a while. My boule was over-proofed before my oven was ready — you could definitely tell. The outer skin of the loaf was very soft and almost ready to fall in; it wasn’t even firm enough to properly score. The problem? I can track it all the way back to my dough prep — where quickly measuring my... Read More
Slightly Less Challenging Bread
Sep 04, 2012Some people like crusty, nutty, tangy, chewy bread. You can count me as one of them. But not everybody is the same, and as the household baker, I am held accountable to the standards of my constituents — the family. And if I go too far down the path toward hearty, challenging bread (and if you throw in a mistake here and there), my eaters will start to become leery,... Read More
Much Better
Aug 31, 2012Phew. My reputation as the family baker is saved — at least until my next meltdown. 85% hydration — very wet, but some of the water was soaked up by 20% of whole grains (muesli). 80% whole wheat and 20% white whole wheat flour, with 1.5% honey and 1.5 olive oil. I pre-fermented the 80% whole wheat overnight, and added the remaining ingredients the next day. The dough itself was... Read More
The Accidental Hockey Puck
Aug 29, 2012Sometimes it just doesn’t go according to plan. These loaves are small, tough and dense. You can see that the dough just isn’t happy when I was shaping my boules. Blah. Was it that I let the dough rest overnight and it never really had enough time to warm up and become elastic? Was it that I used 100 grams of molasses, instead of a mix of honey, olive oil... Read More
More on Supermarket Bread
Aug 27, 2012While buying King Arthur whole wheat flour and rye flour at my local supermarket, I saw their “bread” section out of the corner of my eye and decided to swing by. For $1.49, you can buy an 8 oz “Sourdough Baguette”, and I couldn’t help myself. I bought one, just so I could read the labels and take a few photos. My first impression is that word “Natural” needs to... Read More
Using a Digital Kitchen Scale to Experiment
Aug 27, 2012Here is a slightly different way of thinking about a digital kitchen scale. Years ago, when I first started baking, the single most important thing I did early on was to use a kitchen scale that I set to work in grams. At first it was a consistent way of getting my hydration right for pizza dough, and then it slowly evolved into my bread baking — and it led... Read More
Making a Pretty Good Baguette with Pizza Dough
Aug 25, 2012Everybody has leftover pizza dough. Two nights ago, we had company and made flatbreads to go with steak and salads, and we ended up with two 275 gram dough balls. They weren’t anything special; just regular 65% hydration dough using Trader Joe’s general purpose flour (embarrassing, but we ran out of both Caputo and Central Milling 00), and the dough balls sat out most of the evening and developed a... Read More
Much Better Whole Wheat boules
Aug 23, 2012Now that we are we have started eating new and improved whole wheat boules, the difference is huge. This bread is moist, the crumb has nice texture and the crust isn’t tough. It’s a pleasure to eat. All of this for 60 grams of water? You can definitely see the difference in the photos. Read More
