Bolted

Yeah, it’s another boule BUT this one’s historic!

Aah, retirement … I’m not sure if it’s possible for real bakers to retire. Even if they stop selling to customers they get the itch to be trying something new. Earlier in the year I started researching coca doughs and the furthest I got was to assemble a heap of Spanish cookbooks on my desk that keep getting in the way. I did actually work my way through a bunch of obscure Dutch sourdough recipes given to me by my now deceased friend Gert. I wanted to run through them a second time but was interupted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and got into modifying Ukrainian bread recipes.

Few years back I bought a mill at a very good price from a guy on a baking forum who said he loved the idea of milling his own grain but didn’t use it enough to warrant keeping it. And, of course, I was full of good intentions, used it a couple of of times and then neglected it.

Now I’m a reformed character. I did stock up with a few sacks of Shipton’s No 4 with the dire warnings about wheat shortages and rocketing prices but I’m now determined to buy only grain and learn how to mill.

Despite the growth in home milling in recent years, I’m finding it very difficult to get information about the actual milling process and the sifting of flours. The books I have found have been 90% recipes – I don’t need more bread formulas, I just want milling info.

So I bought a couple of fine sieves, 80 & 60 microns, and the thing that makes this loaf special is, it’s the first loaf made from the finest flour I can produce, i.e. my new “white flour”.

Jolly delicious it was too …