Brown Sourdough Mountain

I wanted to bake a brown bread with sourdough. I thought of Brown Country Semi Sourdough I was pretty pleased with. I also baked a Brown Multigrain Norwich Sourdough .
But, today I went for another variation of sourdough bread; with only all purpose flour, whole wheat bran with multigrain and roasted malt. While measuring the flours I discovered that I didn’t had enough sourdough. I needed 190 gram and had 160 gram. Ok, ‘another variation’. And what a surprise it was when the bread came out of the oven. It had risen like a mountain with less sourdough. The taste and smell are great. That day I had also baked baguette traditional to go with the French cheeses our friend had brought over from France. But, when we saw this bread we needed to taste this brown mountain too. And it was great.

All these breads started with great recipes from Susan. This bread is for Susan of Wild Yeast. Without her recipes and great tips I wouldn’t have baked all these delicious breads. Thank you Susan.

Sculpture

Today I made a sculpture without knowing it. I used to sculpt with wood, stone and other materials. I carved, cut and polished for many hours to create a form.

But, today I made a “no knead bread”. I like the structure of the material. A part of me is missing the shaping, folding and proofing of regular bread. But, after 19 hours it was time to put the dough onto a flour covered sideboard and try to shape and fold it with a scraper. What a feeling! While I’m writing this for my blog, one of our three cats, Deng, joins me. She jumps on the desk and wants attention. I rub her tummy and than I recognize the feeling! It looks like the no knead dough! She is not too fat, only her tummy is too big and so soft.

Sourdough Italian Rolls

Every time I look for a new recipe I first have a look at WildYeast. This time I found Italian rolls with meatballs. I had no idea but I had to make them too. We had some bacon in the fridge and some tomato and salad; I made a sauce with mayonnaise and garlic. And for the other roll I mixed the slow roasted tomatoes with garlic in oil and this made a great sauce with the meatball. Girlichef has the best recipe for these delicious smelling and tasting tomatoes.

It takes practice to make nice looking baguettes and rolls. My technique is improving. These rolls look more like rolls and less like sausages. And, they tasted great.

SÛKERBÔLLE or Sugar bread

Today I will bake bread and send it to the Bread Baking Babes. I enjoy reading about the Babes and using their recipes. This month is their 3th anniversary and they ask to choose and send favorite bread from their collection. Because it was hard to choose my favorite from all the delicious bread and rolls, I went for the one I had already put on my list to bake; Sugar bread.

Bread Baking Babes, this one is for you!

Recently I baked a Kouign Amann also known as Breton Cake. This bread reminded us of Dutch suikerbrood (sugar bread). When we were young we ate this sweet bread on special days, probably because in those days you could only buy it in the far North of Holland. And we use to live near the coast. Holland is a small country, but driving 200 km for sweet bread is unthinkable. Nowadays you can probably buy it throughout the country. Even better is baking your own.

Baguette Traditional

Our friend came for a holiday to Thailand and she brought us French cheeses. Did you ever ate Navarrais goat-sheep cheese? It is delicious; so soft and tasty. The small cheese is our home-made cheese. We made this 3 weeks ago here in Thailand. It's ok, but not delicious yet. But together with the French cheese this called for French bread.
When I first found this recipe by Fromartz, I wasn’t sure if I could do this. The recipe is 4 pages long! But, I have some months of experience now and I like a challenge. And even more, I love to experiment and learn. But, do have a look at the baguettes Sammy Fromartz made.

And I’m very happy I took the challenge. This recipe shows the importance of stretching the dough. It keeps the fermentation gas in the dough and add holes in the crumb.

Black Russian Bread

I found this recipe on the website of King Arthur Flour. Jeffrey Hamelman says “This is interesting bread, not for everyone. I made it every Friday for many a year. It uses up leftover bread, which gives the new bread a richness of flavor”
When I read “… not for everyone”, I thought ‘let’s try it’. I like a challenge and it was. Not because of the recipe but because of the result. We really love dark brown bread, but this Russian black bread was too sour and too firm for our taste.

I divided the amounts of the original recipe by 3. Still I had a medium loaf. I used whole wheat bran in stead of the rye flour in the dough. So, maybe I must call this bread 'almost Black Russian Bread'?

Raisin Swirl with a volcano

I was looking for bread with a pre-ferment for Bread Baking Day #37. I wanted to make sweet bread because I was out of raisin bread. This recipe was the answer to both.

The pre-ferment, or sponge, Rose Levy Beranbaum uses, is a volcano. It’s funny to see the sponge rising trough the flour mixture like a volcano. The recipe for this deliciously smelling and tasty raisin bread can be found in “The Bread Bible” by Rose Levy Beranbaum (Cinnamon Raisin Loaf).

I added 125 grams more raisin than Rose and added 50 grams of dried small oranges, lemon peel and plums. I had no 40 gr milk powder for the flour mixture so I left it out.

We had friends over when I was baking the bread and they couldn’t wait to eat it. The whole house smelled like a good raisin swirl with cinnamon sugar or like Christmas? This was not the smell they expected in a house in Thailand.
And, thanks to all the people sharing their good recipes I’m able to enjoy this here in Thailand.

Brown Country Semi Sourdough

Finally!

Today I baked the bread I like to see and eat. This time it is not on someone else’s blog, but here in my kitchen. I had made this bread before; the original recipe leads to a fendu-shaped bread. This is not my thing, yet. I went for one big loaf, so I could use my proofing basket again. I like the white stripes on a brown bread. With a S-curve, made with my lame, it looks great.

Everything went well. I decided to use the big flowerpot for steaming, it has been a while since I've used it. I’m happy I did. The flowerpot works better than the hot stones in my oven. But, the big flowerpot is so heavy! But with this result, I will find a solution. It looks great and tasted great; soft on the inside and crunchy on the outside.