Baking Last Week

It's time to catch up with the oven from last week. I lost the photo uploads from my first effort so I just deleted the whole ball of wax.

That's last Monday's loaf. I used the "Magic Bowl" trick on this one and it didn't quite work out. You use a large enough stainless steel bowl or even one of the parts of a turkey roasting pan and cover the freshly loaded loaf at the beginning of the bake. I made the mistake of not lowering the bowl straight down and when I let the opposite end down. the rim caught the edge of the dough. Just a minor mistake in judging size. However, the loaf did recover from the insult after I corrected my error. The baking temp started at 450F instead of my usual 475F. That lead to a thinner than usual crust which was too soft for Casa de Gumby.

The next loaf was from Friday. It's a 1-2-3 loaf that where I used a small amount, 7%, of spelt flour. The spelt is hard to taste over the whole wheat I used.  Spelt presents some small problems in that it doesn't need as much handling as a wheat flour. It also appears to ferment faster. Spelt is harder to find unless you're shopping at a well stocked natural foods store such as Whole Foods. The cost is also higher.

I still have enough of the spelt flour left that I can make an 800g loaf with spelt as 25% of the flour. I tried something like that last November but never recorded the formula.







We seem to be witnessing the last of the winter season that's reluctant to take its leave. I've seen some brief snow flurries the last two days when normally, the average high temperature is in the low 50s. The usual suspects from the avian world are feeding heavy. I'm fighting the urge to go out and mow the lawn. I know the mower starts, I fired it up just to see what happens. My neighbors didn't react and come out to mow their lawns but it's only a matter of time. If I could only get them to treat their lawns for dandelions.

That's Friday night's pizza. You really can make a whole wheat crust. I'm not sure that I want to go 100% whole wheat but I think it can be done if I use a large pre-soak and large starter combination as Peter Reinhart's "Whole Wheat Breads" describes as the epoxy method. That's a future endeavor for when I'm the only judge for the experiment around the house.