Make a Sourdough Starter

...millions more in the damn flour. If we had to “catch” wild yeasts we’d be making bread with Los Angeles yeasts, which would likely to be too busy yakking on their cell phones in search of an agent to bother helping to leaven a loaf of bread. So now you have no excuses–creating a sourdough starter simple and there is no mystery to it. Get into your kitchen and get a starter going. To make a wheat starter go here. Check out our bread recipe for how...

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Baking Bread in a Casserole Oven vs. a Combo Cooker

...zed by Jim Lahey’s no-knead bread recipe is using a Dutch oven to bake the bread. The Dutch oven harnesses the moisture in the dough to create a steamy environment. This allows the dough to rise rather than toast immediately. Commercial bread ovens (and some high-end home ovens) have steam injection systems that serve the same purpose. A Dutch oven is a lot cheaper, of course. The trick is to get a loose and wet dough into a 500ºF Dutch oven witho...

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Bread Ovens of Quebec Free e-book

...ok forward to having people over to give me an excuse to fire it up. Ovens, in Quebec households were associated with life itself and I understand why. If you’re interested in more information on DIY ovens, I’d recommend The Bread Ovens of Quebec along with Kiko Denzer’s Earth Ovens and Alan Scott’s The Bread Builders (brick ovens). If you’d like to see an oven built in the Quebec style, these folks have posted their experience of building one....

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Does Sourdough Offer Hope for the Gluten Intolerant?

...mentation process. Very few bakeries are milling their own flour and baking 100% whole wheat breads. But you can do this at home if you own a small mill (something on my Christmas wish list). None of the breads I make involve any kneading, so the time investment is minimal. I think fermented breads and home milling offer hope to people who mistakenly believe they are gluten intolerant. And as Anson also pointed out, nobody has studied the effects...

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Don’t Worry About the Boule: Bake Bread in a Loaf Pan

...ooks more like a pancake than an Instagram worthy boule. But if you’re not making bread for the ‘gram, you don’t have to do a boule or batard unless that really floats your boat. There’s nothing wrong with baking in a loaf pan. Sometimes it’s kinda nice to have a square loaf for sandwiches anyways. The pan I have is a Pullman pan made by USA Pan. It’s square and has a lid. The lid is especially handy in that you can do the first 20 minutes of the...

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