Counting our blessings; uncertain for how long we’ll be able to take simple things like freshly baked bread loaves for granted.
#YeastMasters #bread
Counting our blessings; uncertain for how long we’ll be able to take simple things like freshly baked bread loaves for granted.
#YeastMasters #bread
Sunday bread baguettes:
1.5 cups of dark rye flour
2.5 cups of white Canadian flour
1 tsp of dry yeast
1.75 cups of water
0.75 tsp of salt
Some cinnamon powder.
2 tbsp of panela brown sugar
Let it rise at least 3 hours (did it overnight).
Bake at 230 C for 27 minutes.
Dry on a rack for 20 min.
https://albert.rierol.net/recipes.html#Fast%20baguettes%20for%20everyday%20bread
“Tastes like cake”, says my son. And it should: celebratory bread baguettes made with egg, single cream and 1 tbsp of panela sugar.
May we wake up tomorrow in a country with less istrionic, less cartoon villain, less incompetent, less cruel politicians in government.
They love it, particularly when fresh and still warm. My baguette bread recipe today included 1/4 dark rye flour, 2/4 whole spelt, 1/4 white pizza flour. 1 tsp of dry yeast, 1 tsp of salt, 2 tbsp of olive oil, and up to 2 cups of water. Mixed it last night and let it grow overnight.
https://albert.rierol.net/recipes.html#Fast%20baguettes%20for%20everyday%20bread
#YeastMasters #baking
Lots of us bake. For me, it’s a daily ritual: arrive home from the afternoon schoolrun, mix flour, yeast, water, salt and olive oil swiftly, let it sit warm for 2 or 3 hours, roll the baguettes and bake them for breakfast the next day. Costs me less time than getting to the bakery and back, and I always get the bread I want, varied in its flours, texture and taste. All it takes is planning and patience.
There’s also the tag #YeastMasters – imported from other corners of the internet.
A short photo report of my first attempt to bake bread. Cast iron on coals. Spelt flour ciabata. A bit burned. But hey, it still tastes great and I got a lot of experience to do better next time. #YeastMasters
@PaulWermer @RolfAE @straphanger
Not only market forces, also changes in habits and behaviours.
As an amateur baker, the bread I make is order of magnitude cheaper than when bought at the bakery, but for my time; the flour is barely a factor in the cost so splurging in fancy flours is possible: a 1 kg of fancy flour only costs 2 to 3 times as much as 1 kg of plain flour. And despite that a fancy flour baguette comes at ~35 cents of raw material. No market force here.
But what fraction of families bake at home, or cook at all for that matter, in the Western world? So the demand for good raw foods is low. Restaurants spice up and sell low quality stuff at high prices.
But that cost of time is not a cost at all, it's not time wasted, it's family time, social time, being together time, lovely time that makes for good memories of companionship, warmth, cooperative behaviours, constructive life-long busyness, a reference lifestyle, immersed in good smells and flavors to anchor taste and preferences for decades to come.
What a fun and interesting project. Reminds me of the time (2019) that Seamus Blackley and Serena Love extracted yeast from Egyptian pottery, procured old-fashioned wheat of the right variety, and baked conical bread on a fire pit, following the ancient style.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/bread-was-made-using-4500-year-old-egyptian-yeast-180972842/
See the "Ancient yeast project" as told by Serena Love: https://www.e-a-a.org/EAA/Publications/Tea/TEA_72/Research/EAA/Navigation_Publications/Tea_72_content/Research.aspx
There's a paper on this by a different author, Adeline Bats (2020):
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352409X20304223
Fairly standard bread recipe:
2 cups of plain white flour (~10% protein, ~3% fibre)
2 cups of strong whole wheat flower (~13% protein, ~11% fibre)
Up to 2 cups of water
1 tsp of dry yeast
1 tsp of salt
1 tbsp of olive oil (to soften the crust)
1 tbsp of honey
Mix it all, let it grow in a warm place (30 to 40C) for about 2 hours (or at room temperature for ~5 hours), then dump onto a flowered surface, knead to remove the bubbles, split into three, roll each into a baguette, let them raise in a warm place for 15 minutes, cook for 25 minutes at 230C, let them cool on a rack for at least 30 min.
Using a baguette mould helps a lot; otherwise make them out of parchment paper like here: https://albert.rierol.net/recipes.html#French%20baguette%20sourdough
Simple things. Looking forward to breakfast.
Total work time: 16 minutes (including cleaning up).
Total wall clock time: 4 hours.
Estimated cost of ingredients: £0.3 (30 pence).
Food, baking
Never get tired of the sense of joy in that comes from crafting something nice by yourself.
Stone ground whole wheat 1:1 white spelt, with sourdough starter.
And the kitchen is closed. I cook my bread on pizza night to have a super hot oven.
Baked in a soaked clay pot. It’s a round loaf but cut so it accordions lengthwise in my oblong pot. “Bigger” loaf. Slightly smaller slices, but more of them. Winning.
35% wheat bread. My secret for getting big sexy oven kick at the score? Spray into the cut with water. Keeps it wet longer and you get more rise.