varda's blog

The other day I was baking a lot of bread, and had excess white starter on my hands.   I knew that I had (or would have) too much bread on hand to make more, but what about later in the week?   Maybe I would run out and wouldn't have time to bake.    So I took my excess starter, added flour, water and salt, mixed it up, put it in a lidded tub and stuck it in the refrigerator.   Two days later, sure enough the bread had run out.   So I removed the tub from the refrigerator.   The dough was totally aerated, but did not have a so

I have never been one to put extra stuff into bread.   Flour and water all the way.   And yet, resolve weakens, fruit beckons, fresh loafers keep on posting.    What can one do?    A rhetorical question of course.    The simple answer is throw in a few dried cranberries.   I had already developed a nice seeded levain (after tasting Jong Yang's delcious one at the TFL Boston meet-up)  and thought - just swap out the seeds for the cranberries.   It works.   Two completely different breads on th

Update:   A photographer and reporter from the local paper stopped by our meet-up.   Here is the link to the article.   In the print version we were the top front page story.  

No not a publishing company, or a fancy new German housewares line - just a humble cobbler's loaf and miller's miche.  

This weekend,  I and three other TFLers took a rye class at King Arthur with Jeffrey Hamelman.    Larry - aka Wally -  Faith in Virginia, and Otis - aka burntmyfingers - were there each driving from a different corner of the region.   It was fantastic to meet them for once, knowing them only from their bread and words up to now.  The class had 11 students (one didn't show up!)   ranging in age and experience, with the one from furthest away hailing from Malibu, CA.