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Down to my last granules of a very old batch of Backferment, something my sister sent to me many years ago. I still wonder if it's working, though it gives me some definite signs of life and fermentation. I can't find an expiration date. Does one exist? Here's some bread I made with it.
I'm trying to make goatzzarella, a goat milk version of mozzarella. I had the curds set and whey , but it wasn't quite right in temperature. Still, I'll give this idea another run, with a good source for milk from Coach Farm.
Usually I have some pizza dough in my fridge, but recently I was out, so I decided to go with an old formula I used at work for staff, but using skura flour. I made up the dough, let it rise, and balled it after it had doubled and let it park in my fridge. Late evening dinner of four cheeses, tomato and basil, a nice pie, not overly yeasty, and the skura flavor was in there.
Since using both durum and kamut, I find very little noticeable differences so decided recently to to merge the two in baking some Sicilian semolina and a pane di Matera. I used the kamut as the fermentation in the form of a pasta madre, with 50% hydration. The Senatore Cappelli I used is heritage durum and it's pricey, so I combined it with some kamut. What I got were two very tasty specimens, with different crumb structure, but with beautiful sunny yellow color.
Key to baking is knowing the sequence of your formula, weights and measures. I was always taught to taste the dough, so you don't forget salt! Even with running back and forth from my computer to the bakers scale I've made errors, so I contacted Jacqueline Colussi of BreadStorm™ to see if the application works with an iPad. They got me set-up with the beta version. It's going through trial runs now in my kitchen, and it's great to just flip through, edit and enter data with just a few taps and yes maybe a bit of flour too!
"La Fanette" is a bread I've made with and without success. This time I made what Thierry Delabre calls his "hobby levain," a firm starter at 50% hydration, all kamut rather then wheat. The spelt I used was whole grain, no white sifted or milled white spelt. The finished product was so perfect and the flavors from whole grains made this a pleasure in texture and taste.
The best part of the manufacturing this bread is the end pieces that are cut in the non shaping style, and you get the "bakers" little bun for first dibs.
The New York Times recently featured a piece about making pizza at home. The recipe came from Roberta's Pizza in Brooklyn. Looking at it with a slightly jaded eye, I still had to give it a go, maybe work on making it my way.
So first, I punched in the numbers into my BreadStorm and well, I figured it's relatively close to classic Napoletano, but the video shows a pretty thin crust pizza, baked in a not too shabby looking oven too, but minus the cornicione I love, probably should of got a Baking Steel.
I have followed Chad Robertson's Tartine bread books, but with my "lazy baker" habits, schedule, and what-not, his approach challenges me. Recently I picked up Ken Forkish's book, which is really good and has led to some really nice bakes. Not that Chad's book hasn't got me baking his bread. Rather, it's something with the lost in translation, so I justified using Ken's sourdough for Chad's Levain dough from Tartine bread #1 and well, I got magic.
When my old sous chef Bob del Grosso popped up with a post modern cured egg yolks in salt, I wasn't gonna miss that chance to try it....
Here is day one...only ten to salt cure then 30 days to dry in rice.
Antonio Cepas Alonso is a great baker in Toledo (Spain, not Ohio) working at Benipan. Just a few months ago he took a bread I adapted, a pumpernickel and he made his even more remarkable. So one day my sourdough was quite active and I made his nut and seed loaf again, and wow, better then ever.
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