Prompted by ehanners post and great looking loafs I baked Shiao Ping's Chocolate Sourdough earlier this week. I followed the formula pretty close and was pleased with the results. I went with 2 small and one larger boule. Shiao Ping advises to bake them right from the fridge. I did get better oven spring with the boule that I let warm for about an hour so I wondered if I should have done this with the others, or if I just should have let them rise a bit longer before I put them in the fridge to retard. Anyhow, if you are looking for a great sweet bread for a holiday breakfast or other celebration you may want to consider this as an option! A couple pics of the oven spring from the loaf I let warm and the crumb follow:
I baked the buckwheat batard from Leader's Local Breads yesterday. This is my third or fourth attempt at this bread, and by far the most sucessful. The first time I tried this bread I was unaware of the errors in the formula (if you do a search of the site you will find posts on the errors of this book) and ended up experimenting just trying to get a buckwheat starter that I could work with. The flavor is so unique that I did not give up and have come up with a formula that works for me. For the buckwheat levain I used 75 grams of my liquid levain that is approximately 100% hydration. To that I added 35 grams of water and 40 grams of buckwheat flour, which totals 150 grams, close to the 125 grams needed for the dough, with just a little to spare. I let this sit and ferment overnight. There was not much visible fermentation as far as rising or bubbles coming to the surface with this levain, however upon stirring it up it was evident from the texture that it was active. I then followed the rest of the formula as written in the book, except that I made 3 loaves instead of the suggested 4. I'm not a big butter fan however I really enjoy this bread warmed with a little butter on it, and the buckwheat flavor is very unique. Now on to the pics...
Inspired by Txfarmer's post ( http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/14636/auvergne-rye-baguette-bacon ) last week I baked Leaders Auvergne Rye with Bacon today. I didn't have the really open crumb txfarmer had but I'm pleased with the results. These loaves were proofed in the fridge overnight which, if anything else developed a good 'skin' that made scoring easy. I expected more of a bacon flavor - I'd say there is a hint of flavor but not much more - which is disapointing after adding seven slices of bacon! I can't say this is one of my favorites from Local Breads but I may try it again some time. On to the pictures...
I thought I'd post the resluts from yesterday's baking and see if I can figure out how to post pictures, so here goes. This is the French bread from Ed Wood's "Classic Sourdoughs" I don't use this book as much as others in the library but the timetable of the formula worked with my Friday / Saturday schedule. The crust is nice and crispy and I did get some nice fractured crackles as soon as they came out of the oven. Oven spring wasn't quite as good as I'd like and as usual, the biggest challenge for me is getting a good score. Enjoy.
Hey folks. I've been reading posts at this site for a very long time (years?) and finally decided to sign up. It's certainly been a good resource for me to learn from and improve my baking. I have had a few sourdough cultures for a while now and that is what I really enjoy baking with - it all just seems like a big science experiment that you get to enjoy eating when you are done with it! I've recently relocated from the east side of Oregon to the west side and the rainy season is looking to be the bread baking season for me. Thanks to all of you who I have enjoyed reading and learning from. I'll look forward to posting some pictures of my breads as that is what I seem to enjoy more than anything else from others posts!
