Dan Lepard – Influencer?

In the mid noughties Dan Lepard had a huge influence on home bread baking in the UK and beyond. The forum on his website was a lively collection of learning bakers sharing ideas, and his 2005 book, The Handmade Loaf, could fairly be described as “the book that started a baking revolution” as it is […]

Real Buns Taste Better

Burger King are right. So I made some. Maybe they could do the same … Formula

Lunch #147

Life is pretty easy when you have no judges but yourself and you know how to recover from mistakes. This dough was supposed to be Mixed Wheat Roman Style pizza which goes:Wholemeal Wheat 70%, Spelt 20%, Rye 10%. Liquids in the mixing bowl followed by the flours. But, mistook the Rye box for the Wholemeal […]

Sunday Lunch #32

Top to bottom: Guacamole, Pork/Onion Braise, Rice & Chickpeas, Enchilada Sauce, Texas Wheat Tortillas, Lettuce, Pickled Red Onions, Jalepeños Pickle, Grated Cheese, Soured Cream. Glad I wasn’t washing up as well …

72.4% – honest

So, last post we concluded that what I had been calling 85% extraction was actually 72.4%. Doesn’t make any difference to anyone else but I like to know what I’m doing. It is not easy learning about grain and milling. For a start, I’ve decided I should stick with Adam Leonti’s Flour Lab book so […]

Not 85%?

Still trying to get my head round milling definitions. I’ve been milling grain, then putting it through two sieves (three in this case because there’s some chaff in the mix) which leaves me the chaff, the bran, the middlings and the sifted flour. To achieve the blend I want I’ve been adding 15% (of the […]

85% Baked

Following on from “Another Fine Mesh” and “Crossed Wires“, let’s go the whole hog and bake with the stuff. As I said, my blend of preference is 85% Extraction, that is sifted flour with 15% bran added. To be honest, I don’t know if this is the correct use of the phrase “85% Extraction” but […]

Crossed Wires

Monday morning – new week. Step boldly forward to test sieves in light of new information – see previous post. Ignore the diameters, that’s just a red herring. The sieve on the left is 60 mesh, the one on the right is 80 – we now know that 60 mesh has bigger holes than the […]

Another Fine mesh…

I must have been off school when they did mesh in maths class. I didn’t even know that mesh, as a measurement existed. I’m trying, in my old age, to learn about grain and home milling and sieving flour. I’ve been baking, both amateur and for sale, for 30 years but when you get into […]

4 Doughs in Day!

In the old days, when we were baking for sale, we always mixed eight different doughs – Campagne (which also did for the baguettes), Classic, Wholemeal, 5 Seed with Spelt, Multigrain, a Special, a Special Rye and a Special Flatbread (usually some variety of focaccia.) – the 3 specials changed every week. Couple of days […]