increasing fermentation but still underproofed Submitted by gabev50 on April 22, 2024 - 11:50am. thank you all for taking the time to read this lengthy post and any feedback is very much appreciated. i have been baking a ton of bread the last 4-6 months and i have learned a lot, but am still struggling to execute really good fermentation.  this last bake (naturally leavened) i pushed fermentation to the max (for me, at least): 40% inoculation, 10 hrs of total fermentation. the first 3 hours the dough temp was 85, then i let it coast for 6 more hours at room temp (RT 68). it was ne ..read more

Tsoureki sweat Easter bread Submitted by ReneR on April 22, 2024 - 4:52am. As I had posted in reply to cfraenkel, this Easter I tried  to make a Greek sweet Easter bread that has eluded me so far in terms of a successful bake.  They haven't been a disaster, but also not what I had tried and liked so much.  It has a very particular flavor thanks to a combination of ground cherry seed powder (mahleb) and ground up dry mastic resin. It also has a very characteristic texture/crumb, more stretchy, chewy, and moist rather than with big bubbles and airy.  After substantial ..read more

Forkish's Country Bread. EIB Style. Submitted by The Roadside Pi... on April 21, 2024 - 3:14pm. I pretty much have this one down pat. I am now working on an unfed l, overnight room temperature ferment style. It's the early bird that catches the worm. Bake off protocol initiated. 1. Preheat sequence - T Minus 30 minutes to completion. 2. Pre bake visual fermentation inspection ✅ 95-100% of full fermentation achieved.  3. The flip ✅ 4. The Slash ✅ 5. The Load ✅ 6. Initiate steam injection ✅ Now we wait...   My goodness, how good fresh bread smells in the morning! The crumb reveal &nb ..read more

The Breads of Egypt - Barley bread Submitted by aly-hassabelnaby on April 21, 2024 - 12:02pm. Hey everyone, I've posted another recipe on my website, this time for a pocket-style barley bread we have in Egypt. This one was slightly challenging to produce a full pocket with barley flour since it doesn't contribute any gluten. Pocket formation seems to depend on a strong gluten network and I managed to get enough strength in the dough by using 50% wheat and 50% barley while pushing my oven to its maximum temperature. Check out the recipe here: Egyptian barley bread recipe Let me know if you've ..read more

Mochi Sourdough Hokkaido Milk Bread Submitted by Benito on April 20, 2024 - 6:21am. My second go at this bread that uses sweet rice flour (aka glutinous rice flour) in the tangzhong.  Read my previous blog post for details as to why this type of rice flour is especially good as a tangzhong and prolonging the freshness of bread.  You’ll recall that this rice flour is also used to make mochi, which I have made before and it also delicious so it is a good thing to have around if you like Asian treats. For this bake I fixed the hydration error that I made last time that prevented me fro ..read more

Hamelman's Sourdough 5-Grain Bread Submitted by pmccool on April 15, 2024 - 11:16am. Sometimes you get the bear.  Yes, really.  After a number of recent thoroughly edible but not very interesting bakes, I finally have one that gets me excited. Sure, I could have let the final ferment go a bit longer but ... I'm getting ahead of myself. We got home last Friday from a 3.5 week trip to Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji.  Which was absolutely wonderful, by the way.  We are happy to be back home and sleeping in our own bed after 15 flights and 11 different hotels.  Before ..read more

My first descent home-oven baked pizza (finally!) Submitted by ReneR on April 14, 2024 - 11:06am. It has been a massive source of frustration for me that, despite being able to produce pretty descent sourdough loaves, I have abjectly failed, so far, to make any remotely good pizzas and focaccias. Even as a kid I remember trying to make pizzas and being so massively disappointed with the biscuity results.  Every time I would come across some new technique or method that seemed to me to provide some kind of logical 'fix' for what I was thinking the underlying problem m ..read more

Mochi Sourdough Milk Bread Submitted by Benito on April 13, 2024 - 6:56am. For my first bake back home in Toronto I wanted to experiment with my sweet rice flour (glutinous rice flour which is gluten free of course).  I had read in Serious Eats the following which I found quite informative and interesting. “ …the presence of a scald makes a bread far more resistant to staling than dough made without one. More accurately known as starch retrogradation, staling is the reversal of gelation, where the water in the starches gets pulled out of them, causing the starches to crystallize and ..read more

Foodgeek's Danish rye (rugbrød) Submitted by JonJ on April 10, 2024 - 4:22am. This bread ticks a whole bunch of health check-boxes for me and my ravenous teenager who is into healthy eating - whole grain, not wheat, and lots of fibre from seeds. Foodgeek (Sune Trudslev) has a great description of this recipe with a matching video. He even has some fun suggestions of toppings you can use to make open sandwiches (smørrebrød) including, of course, smoked eel. The high amount of seeds in this bread (90%) are what make it so special, bringing in some flavour, and a lot of chew and fibre. I pref ..read more

Sun Dried Tomato Pecorino Oregano Sourdough Fougasse Submitted by Benito on April 9, 2024 - 3:21pm. Last bake down here in Fort Lauderdale for the season for one last dinner party.  Fougasse really are fun to bake, the shaping especially is.  Trying a different flavor this time using sun dried tomatoes, pecorino cheese and oregano.  Once again this is a very delicious bread and perfect for those who want to maximize the crispy crust.  It is exceptionally difficult to keep bread crispy down here in humid Florida, but a few minutes in the oven just before serving does the tr ..read more