Monday Morning Open Thread: 1/11/21
Loaf Loves
Welcome to this week’s Open Thread. I thought we should use this week to talk about our bread successes. Tell us about your favorite loaves, your go-to breads, the ones that you have mastered and are now in regular rotation.
I’m asking in part because I’m looking for a little inspiration myself. I haven’t baked a proper loaf of sourdough bread in awhile now (I’ve been busy making rye-based cookies for an Edible Boston story), and I want motivation to get back at it. You of course are welcome to share your enthusiasm for the recipes I’ve posted here, but I’d also love to hear about loaves from others or of your own invention.
Looking forward to hearing about your faves!
—Andrew
Ps. While I will provide prompts for each week’s open thread, you should not feel obligated to stick to the theme. “Open” means just that: feel free to share or ask whatever you like here.
I'm not really a creature of habit, and like to experiment a lot. This is not the best approach for perfecting my craft, but I often get very good loaves, if not perfect. I have also had my share of duds. I want to be more disciplined about it, though, and am slowing getting myself prepped to begin weekly bakes (of SD... I already bake weekly, and often more than that). I will likely begin with The Loaf or the porridge bread on this site. That said, I really loved the sweet potato loaf and cranberry walnut loaf out of Sarah Owens' book Sourdough. It's an interesting book, and she has quite a few recipes for using discard as well.
My favorite dough to make is brioche, which is actually a pastry/bread crossover. It's such a versatile dough, too, which is part of what I love about it. I would like to experiment with sourdough versions as well as versions that use locally milled whole grain flours.
I am prepping for our church's Holiday Extravaganza in early November so baked (in an attempt at stress-baking) 24 loaves of bread yesterday. I did the preferments and most of the scaling Saturday evening, got a good nights sleep and made: Boxcar and Cranbuck (with fresh and dried cranberries) from Martin Philips book (highly recommend this modification to the cranbuck) - double and triple batches respectively. Also made a double batch of the lovely honey challah from Cheryl at Nomad bakery for her inspirational Hamsa challah class on Sunday afternoon. Also made Roxana Jullapat's Blueberry Purple barley (4 x 1 kg boules) and a Cinnamon Apple Sourdough from another BBGA baker. Then, I rested :)