DianaM

Hi Kerry, I am in for the Soma visit also. Thank you.

Thank you for being patient with me, Kerry. Please put me down as a definite for the Friday visit to Soma, as well as the Saturday and Sunday learning sessions. (Sadly) no for Morato, Friday show and tell, Saturday dinner. Diana

Kerry, Is the offer for the IR thermometers for $20 still valid? If so, I'd like one as well. Thank you!

I think we may yet see its revival. My local bulk store now carries stone ground barley flour, and it is a relatively new addition to their stock. I bought some a few weeks ago, together with spelt, kamut, dark rye, red fife wheat, buckwheat, amaranth, and teff. I experimented a lot with spelt and kamut in breads, in combination with whole wheat and strong white flour, and the loaves have been excellent. The barley and buckwheat were used in pancakes, and I loved the flavour. I am on a rye kick right now, but I'm looking forward to trying the barley as well, it has great flavour. When you make barley bread, do you use it in combination with white flour, or whole wheat, or on its own? I also bought some emmer (farro) grains from the grocery store. If I can figure out how to mill them at home, I will try them in loaf of bread.

A white flour sourdough starter will be ready when it doubles in volume in 8 hours or less on a 1:1:1 feeding ratio. Typically, this will happen on, or after the 7th day since starting your culture, but most people wait until day 14 to make the first loaf, just to give the culture time to gain more vigor. Your rye starter should double in less than 8 hours, since whole grain flours (like dark rye) ferment more quickly.

Could you please post one of them? I have some cherries on hand too, and would like to make it.

Hm. I was under the impression that fine rye flour and dark are milled from different parts of the rye grain, and that they are also completely different to work with (kind of like whole wheat, and white flour - you could not sift whole wheat and obtain white flour, since the whole wheat includes both the germ and the bran, whereas the white has both removed during the milling process). I will look into this some more. I know by now that you are very familiar with rye flour, and am not questioning your expertise, only reflecting on whether different parts of the world have different milling practices with respect to rye. Thank you for your response, CatPoet.

I think you would find these two blog posts useful: http://www.wildyeastblog.com/2007/07/13/raising-a-starter/ and http://yumarama.com/968/starter-from-scratch-intro/ The author links to two articles written by microbiologist Debra Wink on The Fresh Loaf Forum, they are a very interesting read, and will give you some confidence in starting your culture. I know I found Debra's articles very useful when I began my sourdough journey, and I highly recommend them. I did not start with rye flour, but with a white bread flour, stone-ground in a 200-year old historic mill. I made my first bread on day 7 after starting my culture, I posted about it on eG then: http://forums.egullet.org/topic/124319-the-bread-topic/?p=1958055 I buy dark rye flour at my local bulk bin store. Oddly, I am having a harder time locating fine rye flour in my area.

Yes, I do it too. I always do it when I need to make a cake for someone for a deadline, to avoid having to scramble on the last day. Then the power goes out, and you're fresh outta luck. So to avoid these crises, I make the cake layers and freeze them for a few days, until I am assembling the cake. Plastic wrap will do, but I like better the "press and seal" type wrap, it does not squish the cakes' sides. I have never packed in vacuum, as I don't have the right equipment. But I'd be worried about crushing the cakes if I used it, particularly for more fragile ones. Fruitcakes perhaps lend themselves to vacuum packing, but a tender butter cake... maybe not so much. Just speculating, I have not tested this. Once I froze a filled and frosted cake. It was a small, 6-inch chocolate cake filled and frosted in buttercream. I made it as an experiment, to see if it could be frozen like that (or rather, if after thawing it, it would still be decent). And it was decent, both the cake and the buttercream (Swiss meringue) were ok.

Nina, could you please share your recipe? And do you think it will work with cherries?

Wow, emmalish - so many choices, and all look awesome! It's too hot here right now to turn the oven on, but when it cools down, I want to try one of these. Although it is hard to pick just one. I have a question about the animal crackers. Can you please share where you bought the cookie cutters? The jungle theme suggests a set. Am I right? I think my son would love these.

It is a beautiful loaf, Anna, the golden colour, the sesame seed crusting - yum! What temp did you bake it at? I always worry that the sesame seeds might burn, but on your loaf, they look to be at the perfect "doneness."

Thanks, Anna. I just do things many times over, until I no longer botch them.

Thank you. You're very close - the literal translation would be "to many years." It's the expression used to wish someone happy birthday in Romanian.

One of my friends celebrated his birthday this Saturday, and he asked that I make him a chocolate cake. And so I did.

Yes, you are correct, hands only. I admit, this is mostly because I am too lazy to wash the parts of the food pro or mixer. And indeed, it is harder (though not impossible) to overmix the dough by hand. I do rest the dough before rolling, I find it makes a difference. I basically leave the dough alone at room temp, in a cooler spot, while I prep the fruit. I don't refrigerate it, because it gets trickier to roll it out. If you're exploring fruit pastries, don't forget hand pies: easy to transport, and no cutting required once they're baked.

gfron1, could you please post the final ingredient quantities you've used? And did you make the hålkakor, or the scored/break-apart version?

Smithy, I'd gladly have a slice of your peach galette, looks delicious. Did you try a bit a bit of almond extract in the fruit mixture? It makes any stone fruit pie sing, imo. Until the pros have a chance to answer, I can share my experience. I do not use egg wash beneath the fruit, but I do use almond flour, just sprinkle a handful onto the rolled out crust, mostly for stone fruit, but also for blackberries. For apples, I do not use almond flour, just pour the apple mixture straight in. To get flaky pastry: I measure the cold butter, straight from the fridge, then grate (yes, you read that right) it into the flour-salt-sugar mixture using the large wholes of the box grater. Then just a very brief "rubbing in" of the butter into the flour, maybe 3-4 strokes, then I add the water. Mix (not too well), and very briefly knead, again maybe 2-3 strokes. Keep everything cold. I refrigerate the bowl I'll be using, the butter stays in there until the very last minute, and I put plenty of ice in the water I'll be using for the dough. Just writing this up makes me realize how much I love pies.

Franci, I think yours looks very good, the rhubarb cut lengthwise like that looks very nice. And yes, I agree about the flours - 2 T of flour does not seem like enough. But I used less than the messy baker, so I was somewhere in the middle. I think I used the 1/4 flour but only 1 T cornstarch (had no tapioca). Ann_T wow that first pie looks amazing!

And here it is. I botched the shaping, so it looks like a giant ladyfinger, but the taste is very good. The loaf has a soft, moist-cool crumb, it sliced beautifully, and is just begging for the fixings of a sandwich with personality (so no chicken breast or low-fat mayo).

We had the same brain wave, Ann_T! My 30% rye sourdough is just now cooling on the counter. I shaped mine into a batard, however.

Thanks, Franci. It was great! I did not use the entire quantity of frangipane paste, but I think it would have worked well, especially if the galette is made for people with a sweeter tooth. The balance of tart and sweet was very good to my taste, but my husband would have liked it a bit sweeter. I did not use the orange zest, I wanted just rhubarb, and strawberry as the stars, and the vanilla in a supporting role. I want to cut myself a slice every time I walk by it. I will definitely be making this again.

I found it at a local store, and bought it. And I agree, it tastes fantastic. On the back of the tin it came in, it is suggested that it be paired with vanilla ice-cream. Before trying that out, however, I would like to attempt this cake: http://www.deliciousdays.com/archives/2009/06/03/the-incredible-green-cake/ Perhaps bake it in a silicone pan so that the sides of the cake remain this incredible green colour.

I made the second one, but subbed the raspberries with strawberries, because I had them handy. They were fresh, juicy and fragrant - we went to pick-your-own at a nearby farm yesterday. It was the start of their season, and I got to pick only the very best berries. Of course I had a blast.

If you don't have a chance to make it, come by and I'll gladly share some of mine.