Biga
Biga is an Italian yeasted pre-ferment. Unlike a poolish, a biga is usually very firm, around 57% hydration. It uses more yeast than a Poolish, and adds a somewhat nutty taste to breads made with it.
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Poolish
Poolish is the French term for a pre-ferment made of flour and water and a little bakers yeast. A poolish is normally made at 100% hydration. The amount of yeast is normally very small. The actual amount of yeast is changed depending on the temperature where the poolish will be allowed to rise and how
Carrot Pineapple Cake
Carrot Pineapple Sourdough Cake A recurring question I receive is what to do with leftover or excess starter. And there are many good answers. Making pizza shells is certainly one of them. Making Blueberry Muffins is another. I have to confess, I’ve never been a fan of sourdough biscuits. I like baking powder biscuits, and to me sourdough biscuits are really rolls,
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Baking Soda and Baking Powder
Where yeast and sourdough raise bread through biological action, baking soda and baking powder raise breads through chemical action. Baking powder and baking soda produce gas quickly, so no long rise is required. This produces a denser, moister and less open crumb structure than breads risen with yeast or sourdough. Breads risen with these chemicals
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Baker’s Percentage
Baker’s percentage is one of the most powerful tools bakers have in their arsenal to help them understand how dough works. In bakers percentages all the flour in a formula, or recipe, is arbitrarily defined as being 100%, and all the other ingredients are expressed as a percentage of that. For example, if there are
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Altus
According to George Greenstein’s “Secrets of a Jewish Baker”, altus is the secret of good rye bread. Altus is left-over rye bread which is ground-up and soaked in water. To make altus, cut the crusts from a loaf of bread(*), soak it in water for several hours, or overnight, under refrigeration. It will keep several
Secrets of a Jewish Baker
“Secrets of a Jewish Baker” by George Greenstein has lots of information about his life in a Jewish bakery, lots of hard to find recipes. This isn’t a good source of sourdough information and the sourdough recipes I’ve tried haven’t been all that good (which could be a matter of taste). However, several of the
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Active Sourdough Starter
Many recipes at Sourdoughhome call for Active Sourdough Starter – so, what do we mean when we call for an active sourdough starter? An active starter is one that has been fed within the past 12 hours, and that is active enough that it was able to double in size after that feeding. Further, unless
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2019-07-21 I Have SO Many Kneads!!
2019-07-21 I Have SO Many Kneads!! Friend of the blog Tre’ asked another insightful (OK, bothersome) question. “What is the best work surface for a baker? And, oh, yeah, what changes between a home baker and a commercial bakery?” You ask a lot of questions for someone from Oklahoma! Tre’ probably wanted a nice and
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How Do I Pay For A Class
On the Class Schedule page each class has a “PayPal” button to the right of it. Click and pay. Easy Peasy. Some people don’t have, or want, PayPal accounts. You can pay using a credit card at PayPal without creating an account. Some people just don’t want to deal with PayPal at all. No problem,
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Things have been quiet… TOO quiet
WOW! Our last blog post was almost 5 years ago! Since then, we completed the move to the new hosting service (we REALLY like(d) Siteground!) And the rewrite of our web page went smoothly. Since then, we’ve largely just updated the class offerings. By the time you see this, the next upheaval will have heaved
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What If I Can’t Make It To Class
We understand that things come up and that no one’s life runs smoothly. We try hard to be fair to our customers, but we do need to cover our expenses. Here are our guidelines for refunds: If you cancel before we have purchased supplies for the class, we will cheerfully give you a full refund.
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