The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

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March 16, 2007 - 12:11pm
dickgeneva's picture
dickgeneva

Uneven rising in pan

Quite often,my loaves will rise unevenly in the oan and break open along one side of the loaf.

I've tried changing from dark to light colored pans,adjusted the moisture,adjusted the amount of

yeast,changed the oven temp,etc. but it still happens. Any thoughts from anyone out there? 

March 14, 2007 - 5:19pm
white_poplar's picture
white_poplar

Blueberry Ricotta Sweet Buns

I am new to bread making... But managed to whip up these rolls. The recipe for the dough is from BBA.

 

 

Interior:

 

 

The recipe is here

 

***Edited Link***

 

http://anhsfoodblog.blogspot.com/search?q=Blueberry+Ricotta+Sweet+Buns 

March 13, 2007 - 6:35pm
Joe Fisher's picture
Joe Fisher

Now THAT's dinner! BBA Sourdough

My sourdough techniques have really come a long way. This weekend's loaf was far and away the best I've made. Delicious, sour, great crumb and texture, it had it all. I used about 25% whole wheat flour.

So what's for dinner? Turkey bacon lightly fried in a skillet then put on top of tangy Greek grilling cheese on my fresh sourdough. The whole sandwich goes back on the skillet and a hot cast iron skillet is put on top to press it down. Some green beans lightly sautee'd with garlic and extra virgin olive oil, and some garlic dill pickles to round it out.

Oh, and a pint of English ale. Who's got it better than me? :)

-Joe

March 12, 2007 - 10:28pm
jonty's picture
jonty

Adventures in Pain au Lait

I had one of the nicer Saturdays in a while this past weekend (thanks to a trip to Trader Joe's and the local Farmers' Market), and I followed it up by baking the pain au lait I prepared on Friday night into cream cheese snails and pain aux raisins.

Couple of things:

I have to make sure I work faster next time. I kept on re-rolling the dough for the pain aux raisins because I wasn't happy with my rectangle, and the dough started to get warm and stick like crazy. In the end, the dough was uneven, and some parts were thinner than others, resulting in major tearing. Some of the rolls were more like blobs of dough, raisins, and cinnamon.

I should make less cream cheese filling next time. After measuring out the amount specified in the recipe, I realized I had only a spoonful more of cream cheese left in the package so I threw it in. The snails ended up covered in, rather than filled with, cream cheese. Still tasty, though.

When I finished, I realized I had around 2 dozen pastries (after eating some, of course) that I would never be able to eat before they went bad. So, I ended up bringing them to my rehearsal tonight. All but one cream cheese snail were taken.

Agenda for next week: try the cranberry-chocolate sweet buns. Well, raspberry-chocolate sweet buns (no frozen cranberries at TJ's).

EDIT:  Oh, I forgot! I finally got my own instant yeast (I had been using my roommate's active dry). Amazing stuff.

March 12, 2007 - 9:50am
Floydm's picture
Floydm

Busy busy

Sourdough loaves

I baked three loaves of sourdough yesterday. The dough was lower hydration than I typically do, but they turned out real nice.

I also made pita bread for lunch. The kids loved rolling them out and eating them. I have to remember to make them more often.

The new job at Mercy Corps is keeping me very busy, which is why I am less active here. I'm extremely excited about being there though. It is a great organization full of great people. I couldn't ask for a much better place to work.

March 12, 2007 - 8:27am
Squid's picture
Squid

My Bread-Making Journey

I figured I'd start this blog to track my bread-making and encourage constructive criticism so that I can improve my bread-making skills. Feedback is welcome.

Sorry, I posted this elsewhere before realizing I should start a blog. This is my 5th attempt at bread-making. My first sourdough bread, cultivated a la Nancy Silverton's instructions using grapes. It had a definite sour taste, but I don't have any personal experiece to compare it to (other that what I've bought). My next attempt will be with SourdoLady's starter and I also have an Italian starter to which I can really compare my homemade starters.

March 12, 2007 - 8:15am
TinGull's picture
TinGull

Pizza!

Made some pizza last night.  It finally got over 50 degrees here and for whatever reason I was in a major pizza mood! 

Made this dough with flax meal added to it.  Nice stuff.  I baked it on my Lodge cast iron griddle that preheated in my oven for an hour at 550 degrees.  That's why the pizzas are a little odd shaped.  but mmmm, so tasty.  Also, some ciabatta's from a couple weeks ago.  

 

ciabattas

 

March 12, 2007 - 6:56am
Marcelo's picture
Marcelo

Bacon Bread

Bacon Bread

This is a variation of the Bread with Olives recipe. The whole recipe is reproduced here (including identical steps), so you don't have to go back and forth between both of them.

I'm baking this one tonight, so I'll make a nice braid and post the photo later.

Here's the link to the recipe.

The bacon gives the bread a strong taste, it's awesome with cream cheese.

Marcelo.

March 11, 2007 - 9:27pm
Jo's picture
Jo

commercial week end

well hooray, I finally sold all my loaves at a little deli nearby, it was fabulous to see people walking out with a baguette tucked under their arms. I had a huge problem last week of the bread splitting down one side and finally managed to solve it so my loaves looked great. I will continue to supply them and only charge them for what they sell, hopefully people will continue to buy. My aim is to sell up to 40 loaves per day, output is small as I only have a single phase deck oven which I have tiled with very thick pizza tiles. I use a garden sprayer for steam and can bake 15 baguettes in one bake.

March 11, 2007 - 9:27pm
pompeii's picture
pompeii

just some baking done last week.

my first sourdough loaf... as i suspected since the starter was only a week old, it was not the strongest of sourdough i've ever had, but it was not bad. tasted more like a french bread with a slight sour. my family ate it up!

cream cheese snails! they came out much larger than i though they would and i ended up making ten, rather than eight, so maybe next time i will adjust the dimensions slightly and lessen the baking time. all in all though, they came out pretty good. best with a cup of tea!

pain aux raisins. i made 10 of these too in addition to the snails. i left 5 of each at home with my family and within a night and a morning they were all gobbled up (between 4 people). so i guess my family approved!

and last but not least - gingerbread dinosaurs! haha, i hand carved them all since i do not have any cookie cutters. i brought them to a party and to my surprise they were all gobbled up. i did though have one complaint. my father said they were crunchy... but i told him they were supposed to be, like ginger snaps! alas, he was just mad that he could not eat them like everyone else because he is having teeth troubles.

 

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