PatrickT

Coming from the baker of those 👆, that is quite the compliment. Thank you! 🙏

💯😃

Commendable first effort with the Tartine Basic County Loaf, but sadly about 30 minutes under-proofed. Thank goodness all C-level efforts deliver A-level flavor nonetheless. 😍

Thank you @Ann_T. Your loaves look and sound amazing! That's a great combination that I'll have to try sometime.

Today, I made FoodGeek's Honey Oat Sourdough. My loaf came out just a tad under-proofed - but the recipe is absolutely delicious. I doubled the honey, as he suggests, and that gave the bread a wonderfully delicate sweetness. The very mild sourdough tang is the perfect compliment to the honey. This might become a fan favorite in our house! The dough at the end of BF, out of the oven, and crumb shots appear below.

Here are a couple of my recent bakes. First attempt at making parathas. I used atta flour - which has a wonderfully nutty flavor. Picked it up at my local Indian grocery store. Definitely going to try making some bread with this flour at some point. I could have rolled the paratha dough out thinner, but I nonetheless got some decent lamination, which I was pleased to see. Also made my own ghee for the first time. Loved these and will definitely make them again. Pictures of the flour I used and the sequence I followed appear below.

LOVE my Ank! It’s definitely an amazing tool - particularly for bread makers.

Well said! 😉

@Ann_T - you might find this interesting. As mentioned above, I've been watching the Tom Cucuzza videos on sourdough bread making, which are all really excellent. In the one I watched today, The Long, Cold Proof, he conducts a very interesting experiment. Using the same single batch of sourdough (the Tartine Country Loaf recipe), he compares 6 loaves of increasingly longer periods of cold fermentation: 24, 36, 48, 72, 96 and 120 hours, across the dimensions of taste, crust/crumb, structure and appearance. He expected to see pronounced increases in tanginess and a gradual degradation in structure across the longer cold fermentation periods. The former assumption was generally true, with some significant caveats; the latter assumption was essentially completely disproven. I've included a screen shot of his overall summary below, but I couldn't help think of the way this all resonates with your own "long, cold proofs." It's a lengthy video but well worth watching in its entirety. Let me know what you think.

This video from Tom Cucuzza, 50 Ways to Kill Your Starter, is not only fascinating and educational - it is hilarious. Check it out during your next BF or proofing wait time. Those little microbes are a lot more resilient than we we give them credit! 🦠 And don’t miss his demo of the Five Feedings Rule.

That looks SO delicious! 😍

Very helpful - thank you. What recipe is this? I’ll watch for that book. Looks like a good one (but pricey!) 😉

Looks lovely. 😃 Couple of questions for you: What did the windowpane test show after you were done mixing? What volume increase did you see after your 4-hour BF? How was the crumb and flavor?

@Ann_T Amazing - and I believe you are right about the yeast. I think you should be able to do the same thing with an equivalent baker’s percentage of sourdough starter. Maybe I’ll try that. And that is a gorgeous crumb! 😍

And again, to clarify - because this just warps my brain - this dough sat in your fridge for essentially 96 hours, followed by another 8.5 hours on the counter before you shaped and baked it, right? And prior to all of that, it was just your regular recipe and method? I just love the rule breaking insanity of it all. LOL

That loaf puts to shame many "artisan loaves" I've seen in bread shops and farmers markets in our area! Truly superb. You should be really proud of that one, @Ann_T.

That is so adorable! 😃 Sounds like Claude is a future baker in training.

Amazing oven spring on that boule @Ann_T!

Thank you! 😃 In terms of the sourness, I would say it's a nice middle ground. I've definitely made sourdough loaves that have been on both the milder and tangier sides. When you eat this one, you know it's a sourdough but it's not over the top.

And PS, @Ann_T - I baked a sourdough version of your recipe this morning and it came out beautifully. This was 20% inoculation, 63% hydration, 4.75 hrs bulk fermentation at 79 F, followed by a 14.5 hr cold retard. Baked it at 450 in the DO, 20 min covered and 20 min uncovered. And ignore the cryptic code you see - it was part of a test I did for a fellow baker.

Thank you, Ann! Another one of my fellow bread bakers made that recipe for her family and it became an instant favorite. It's really delicious and I'm beyond pleased with the way mine turned out. YOUR loaves, as always, are next level. And you have my mouth watering at the thought of those baguettes supporting slabs of leftover pot roast! Wowza! Thanks for sharing.

For those of you who are sourdough bakers, give this video a look. It's admittedly a bit lengthy, but well worth the view. His "Bulk-o-Matic" assessment tool is fantastic (and something I'll definitely pay more attention to in the future), but his final comments and recommendations are particularly poignant. Fascinating experiment!

Here's the crumb of the buttermilk sourdough. Absolutely delicious - really enjoyed this one! I'll make this again for sure. Recipe included in case anyone wants to give it a go.

Thank you @Ann_T! I’ll post my results (crossing fingers). 😉

@Ann_T Gorgeous bake as always. 😃 I'm working on a couple of things. Firstly, FoodGeek just posted a recipe and video on making a regular sourdough loaf using an apple starter. That process itself sounds fascinating and I'm definitely going to try it. Secondly, I found a very intriguing apple sourdough recipe using Masala Chai - and I intend to modify that a bit, using the apple starter from FoodGeek. I also have some canned tart cherries on hand - leftovers from my wife's last cherry pie. I'm thinking I might add some of those in, as well. Just trying to come up with something new and interesting for the fall. We bought a lovely bag of Cortland apples at the farmer's market over the weekend, so the pressure is on! 😂