Making It

...ctions for a wide range of projects, from building a 99-cent solar oven to making your own laundry soap to instructions for brewing beer. Making It is the go-to source for post-consumer living activities that are fun, inexpensive and eminently doable. Our goal in this book was to provide really stripped down, simple projects that use only inexpensive, easy to source materials. We also tried to use the same materials and ingredients over and over a...

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Our Daily Bread: Sonora Sesame Za’atar Bread

...Bread The night before mixing your dough create a pre-ferment: 56 g Sonora wheat (or any whole wheat) 67 g water 10 g sourdough starter In a separate container soak 90 g of toasted sesame seeds in water. In the morning mix together: 509 g Sonora wheat (or any whole wheat) 403 g 80º F water 13 g sea salt pre-ferment sesame seeds 3 T za’atar 1. Mix the dough until all signs of dry flour disappear. While you’re mixing the dough heat a mason jar of wa...

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Dave Miller on Baking with 100% Whole Wheat

...to recognize the quality of a dough and learn to adjust on the fly. Whole wheat flour soaks up a lot of water. The recipes we used called for over 100% hydration. Miller bakes in a hot oven to get loaves that are very dark. With the exception of the rye bread Miller made, the wheat breads had a similar method: Starter was added to flour and water to build up a levain. This was allowed to ferment for three hours. Miller likes a long autolyse. Flou...

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Picture Sundays: Joaquin Oro Wheat Loaf

...This is a 100% whole wheat loaf I baked this week using locally grown Joaquin Oro wheat, a high protein, hard red spring variety. It was fermented with a sourdough starter (100% hydration for the bread geeks out there). And thank you to Michael Pollan for inventing the somewhat crass #crumbshot hashtag. Look for more #crumbshots and a whole wheat bread baking e-book on Root Simple in the coming year....

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