When my new batch durum grain arrived, I milled and sifted it to fine semola rimacinata flour. My first bake was a Sicilian bread with sourdough and olive oil. I used my stock levain of wheat, with the durum making up the rest of the dough’s flour. The loaf...
Revisiting formulas from my early baking days, I went back to a bread combining cider, raisin and apples. Originally learning this bread at Bouley bakery, it’s made with a cider poolish along with a bit of levain. At Bouley, they would use apple to garnish on...
Call me Dr. Frankenstein of bakers, disassembling and then reassembling bread formulas, a percent here, a percentage there. Beauty or monsters, you never know. Take this recent loaf. Considering James Lahey’s Sullivan Street version of pane di comune, a...
Cold bulk fermentation is a baking science geared to increasing flavors (or slowing down) dough. It takes exploration (aka work!). So when my baker friend Egoitz, of The Loaf in Donostia, did a Facebook post on cold bulk, I took up his suggestions. I had two loaves...
In my eternal quest at the perfect sourdough Verace Napoletano pizza, I have tried various approaches. In my latest, I tried a autolyse of sorts; adding in salt at the last moment, a minimal mix, and with a bit of folding, then popping the whole lot into the fridge...
