pmccool's blog

Well, mostly.  

Baguettes are something I rarely make because the form factor doesn’t fit my usual bread needs.  However, my wife needs some for a lunch / book club meeting she has on Monday so here we are.

Baked these this morning for dinner at a cousin's home.  They paired very nicely with the smoked whitefish pate and with the fish chowder.

Paul

Or, How to Score Inconsistently. But, hey, looks aren’t everything.  

Actually, I’m pretty happy with how this bake turned out.  Fermentation is on point and baking went well with plenty of oven spring and good coloring. Shaping was mostly good with only one “bent” loaf.  

Every time I make this, I am amazed at how much it expands in the oven.

Two are for a bake sale that benefits our library and one will go to our grandson in Hawaii. 
Paul

I occasionally teach bread classes at our local library.  This weekend's class featured chocolate babka.  Lots of fun and some really good bread.

Paul

My B&T proofer gave up the ghost a couple of months ago.  It was one of their original models, and I think that it was purchased in 2012.  The new B&T proofers have been, um, upgraded and can now function as slow cookers, too.  The price point is around $250 US.  

It seemed like a good time to make a multigrain sourdough bread, so I reached back to the Infinity Bread template from the Community Bake of the same name.

The flour components for this bake included bread flour (34%), whole wheat flour (33%), whole barley flour (20%), and whole rye flour (13%) totaling 1000g.  

My wife was going through the cabinets last week and hauled out two packets of dried starter.  One was a survivor from our move from South Africa to the US, dating back to October 2011.  So, just a couple of months away from being 14 years old.  Mind you, this has received no special treatment, having been tucked away in one cabinet or another at room temperature.  It has also survived a second move in 2020 when I retired and we moved from Kansas back to Michigan.

When you are fortunate enough to find something like this out in the wild (and they are legally accessible):

you do this:

which can lead to this:

I had been informed that a crusty, French-style bread was required for today's brunch with my cousins.  So, like any good husband possessed of a healthy measure of spousal love and self-preservation,  I set to work.