Hearth Bread
Kitchen Sink Bread
Jul 31, 2012It was one of those moments where you have lots of odds and ends of things lying around — so I made them into bread. It’s quite a list, but it came out nicely. Here goes: 300 grams whole wheat flour 600 grams white whole wheat flour 100 grams AP flour 30 grams honey 30 grams olive oil 30 grams molasses 10 grams yeast 20 grams salt 50 grams flax... Read More
The Damp Towel Trick
Jul 30, 2012Follow a tip from a reader, I covered my dough for overnight proofing in the refrigerator — and it worked really well. Thanks. I don’t really like using plastic wrap (it just seems wasteful to use a manufactured product once and throw it away), so I used a damp linen towel. It kept the surface of my dough from developing a dry skin and because it was damp, it didn’t... Read More
Cuisinart Mixer and Wet Dough
Jul 27, 2012Hmmm. We seem to have a problem. My new Cuisinart stand mixer doesn’t do a good job of mixing high hydration dough. I have been trying different solutions to address the problem (adding the water first, mixing the flour and water using the dough attachment before turning on the machine), but I can’t see to make it work. This isn’t good. Here is a photo of a 1Kg batch of... Read More
Heat Retention
Jul 24, 2012You will certainly take this with a grain of salt (after all, we are a pizza oven manufacturer), but these ovens are great! The heat up time and retention is so good, I just have to say something. haha. I lit the fire at 3:15PM this afternoon after stacking a nice top down fire with two pieces of wood broken down into thinner splits. After the fire was really burning... Read More
Dough Storage and Refrigeration
Jul 24, 2012Time to get a covered, air-tight dough storage container. If you take a look at this photo, you can see that a pretty thick and dry skin developed on my whole wheat oat dough overnight while it rested in the mixing bowl covered with a towel. I stretched and folded it out, and it will get re-hydrated inside the dough ball, but I don’t think this is a good thing. Read More
Dough and Refrigeration
Jul 23, 2012Longer fermentation times release more flavors from the grains we use and gives the yeast and enzymes in our dough more time to break down the carohydrates that are present. I recently read that a well developed dough can have up to 300 different flavor molecules. My guess is that we all pretty understand this at some level, but in general we might be too busy or rushed to actually do... Read More
Pretty Good Wood-Fired Baguettes
Jul 21, 2012These might be my best baguettes yet. There isn’t anything special about my dough prep (these at 70% hydration using Trader Joe’s AP flour), though I think I am getting better at baguette shaping. I think the biggest difference is that I am really getting my hands around my small pizza oven. For these two loaves I only used to two pieces of wood broken down into 2″ pieces. I... Read More
Whole Wheat Oat Bran Bread with Flax Seed
Jul 20, 2012This is one of my better efforts so far. This is a standard whole wheat formula with 10% oat bran and 10% flax seeds. Here is the formula: 800 grams whole wheat flour 200 grams white whole wheat flour (that’s right, no refined flour) 100 grams oat bran 100 grams flax seeds 20 grams salt 10 grams yeast 25 grams olive oil 35 grams honey 750 grams water I feel... Read More
Cuisinart Mixer Update
Jul 19, 2012A quick update on my Cuisinart mixer. First, I made the commitment of recycling the shipping boxes for the mixer, so I guess you could say that I have burned my bridges and I’m going to make this work. My wife asked if I was ready to get rid of the boxes, and my honest answer is that I’m not completely thrilled with either mixer and that both have serious... Read More
