A Few Recent Bakes

I haven’t been around TFL much for the last few months.    Work demands, some travelling, and a bum leg conspired to keep me from baking much.  And most of my baking has been ordinary…hardly blog-worthy.

I’ve missed you all, and thought I’d pop in with a report on some recent bakes.

I baked up more of Hamelman’s 5-Grain Levain, this time making one batch into 6 mini-batards.  They freeze nicely and one of these loaves is good for a couple days of hardy yumminess.

I’ve been working on my pizza crust, using the recipe from my neighborhood joint, Pizzeta 211 (http://www.sunset.com/food-wine/techniques/pizza-00400000063254/).  The dough is mixed for 25-30 minutes on low speed, adding the last half cup of flour gradually.  It shapes nicely into a very thin crust, and comes out tender but crispy.

Here are a sausage, tomato, mozzarella and pesto pie and a pear, bacon, pecan and gorgonzola pie.

The downside of not baking 3 or 4 times a month is you can run out of bread [gasp!].  So, this weekend, with no sourdough in the freezer, I did an emergency bake of my San Francisco Country Sourdough.   Made two crusty boules.  A little out of round, but taste and texture as good as ever.  I guess I didn’t lose my touch.

I also managed to make a big pot of spicy fried chicken and sausage gumbo to take the chill off the cool San Francisco Summer weather.

With any luck, I’ll be baking and blogging more in the next while than I did in recent months.

Happy baking.

Glenn