Bread Techniques

A Forgotten Type of Poolish, Pouliche (Sponge) Loaf

May 16, 2012
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In the last post here, I said since the experiment with the poolish showed signs of activity it had inspired for more experiments, only this time not exhausting the yeast to see whether I could produce a good loaf. A poolish is equal amounts of water to flour, how much yeast you add and the [...]

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A Levain and a Poolish hung out together

May 13, 2012
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I carried out this experiment with the full intention of predicting a failure with the poolish.  What I wasn’t prepared for was that the result wasn’t the complete failure I had anticipated, this led to further experiments with the poolish, very successful ones in fact. It’s established a sourdough dough will give you plenty of [...]

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Scoring, Slashing Sourdough

May 8, 2012
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I’ve already posted lots of photos on scoring/slashing loaves in this post here, but Nicola asked me last night to show her how, and since I had 2 loaves already in the fridge for baking this morning it would be easy to video scoring them…well easy because I had a second pair of hands to [...]

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What a Difference Too Much Moisture Makes

April 26, 2012
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I made these yeast rolls today from the same batch of dough, and wanted to share the extraordinary difference in baking them one batch after the other.  I made the dough last night, bulk proved and shaped, then refrigerated overnight, baked this morning. I pre-heated the oven as usual, added water to the bottom of [...]

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Oxidising Fresh Flour, Over-Oxidising & Over-Mixing Dough

April 3, 2012
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The subject of the need to oxidise fresh flour and also the need to introduce oxygen when mixing dough and the consequences of over doing it, which produces an inferior loaf both in appearance and flavour is a huge subject with nerdy-type of details.  These details cover the effect of the gluten-forming proteins as well [...]

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How To Kill Your Sourdough Loaf

March 8, 2012
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If I’m experimenting then I expect to have a few failures but failures that happen when you know why and you were in a position to stop it I find frustrating, it’s a kicking-myselt type of situation.  I wanted to make a loaf for my meeting with John Letts yesterday, he was kindly providing some [...]

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Shipton Mill No. 4 Flour Organic

March 4, 2012
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The white roller mill flour I like and use regularly from Shipton Mill is their organic number 4, 12% protein.  I use it for all sorts, to mix with stoneground flour like the loaf below or making the kids loaves, whenever I want a roller white texture. What I like about no. 4 is that [...]

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White Spelt Stoneground Foster’s Mill – Alkor

February 21, 2012
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I have little to say about this loaf other than, wow I never thought I would make a loaf with English Spelt using my free-form rising method and result in a rise like this.  Last year I attempted sourdough using English white spelt I had bought in my local supermarket and had disastrous results with [...]

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Problems With Yeast Doughs

February 18, 2012
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Back in October I discussed some problems with sourdough in a post here, and I wanted to highlight some common problems with yeast doughs.  Every week I bake both and my personal preference to work with is sourdough because it’s an incredibly forgiving dough.  I don’t understand when people find sourdough difficult because I can neglect it [...]

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Dan & Chad’s Levain, UK & US

February 13, 2012
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Last year I knew how to achieve a sour or mild tasting loaf from adjusting the proportions of how the levain (leaven) was fed.  I don’t mean using a liquid or stiff starter which is a well known way of controlling acidity in a dough, I mean within your liquid starter you can affect the [...]

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Proving Sourdough In Winter – Max’s Loaf

January 28, 2012
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I’ve been trying to help Max resolve his issues with sourdough for a little while.  If you have ever tried to help anyone with their bread problems across the net you’ll understand how difficult it can be.  There’s a process of eliminations of what could be the cause of things going wrong.  The biggest problem [...]

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Learning Curve During 2011

December 31, 2011
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I thought it would be a good idea to do a recap of my blog’s year, but rather than talk about recipes I go through and highlight what I’ve learnt through my posts.   Starting at the beginning of the year : Stoping Ice-cream Becoming Too Hard Blog Post Here Recipes which contains a lot of [...]

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Amaretto Wheat Variety 10.5% from Felin Ganol Watermill

November 29, 2011
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After writing my last post on Low Protein Flours Make Great Bread, It’s All About the Flour I said I would write in detail how I made my loaves using Anne Parry’s Amaretto white flour from her watermill in Wales.  A flour currently being sold as All Purpose because of its low protein content, 10.5%. [...]

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Low Protein Flours Make Great Bread, It’s All About the Flour

November 24, 2011
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Anne Parry owner of Felin Ganol watermill told me about this stoneground white flour she had, a single variety called Amaretto that was low in protein 10.5%.  This flour is being sold as an All Purpose flour but she thought it had a great flavour.  I couldn’t wait to try it.  I did and love [...]

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Roland Feuillas, Les Maîtres de mon Moulin

October 26, 2011
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Roland Feuillas runs courses on his ancient grains through his mill in Cucugnan, contact him, contact@farinesdemeule.com, 00 33 4 68 33 55 03 or via his website  here.  If passing that part of the world visit his bakery and taste the bread baked in his special wood-fire oven. Words I associate with Roland are; passion, mission, generosity, kind, [...]

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