Sourdough Rye Bread Class at the Ecology Center in San Juan Capistrano

...ake homemade, all-natural bread from scratch. Learn to bake the healthiest bread on the planet: a 100% whole grain sourdough rye. In this class you’ll learn how to start and maintain a sourdough starter and how to work with whole grains. We’ll reveal the secrets of whole grain baking, plus you’ll learn how you can grind your own grains. In the end, you’ll take home a loaf to bake in your oven. You can’t buy this kind of bread so you better learn h...

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Three Things I’ve Learned About Baking Bread With Whole Grain

...he water by the flour–the quirk of baker’s math is that the flour is always 100% ). Old school bread recipes, most of which require a lot of kneading, have hydration ratios in the 65% range. Popular no-knead white bread recipes have hydration ratios in the 75% to 80% range. Whole wheat? We’re talking a range between 85% and 110% depending on the type of grain you’re using. 2. Shorten the fermentation time. I use a sourdough starter and, in my expe...

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I Made a Coffee Sandwich

...onal, for extra coffee flavor) For the sandwich: 8 slices of Japanese milk bread (or any soft bread of your choice) Butter, softened (for spreading) Instructions: In a mixing bowl, beat the heavy cream with powdered sugar until stiff peaks form. In a small bowl, mix the brewed coffee with the instant coffee granules until dissolved. Then fold this coffee mixture into the whipped cream until well combined. Set aside. Take two slices of Japanese mil...

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Timing Sourdough Feeding

...hod, I think one factor is important if you want to get a decent sourdough bread: the amount of time between feeding your starter and making your dough. I keep a small amount of starter on hand since I bake, at most, twice a week under normal circumstances (Under quarantine I’m baking a lot more but the reasons for that would be the subject of another blog post). Just before I go to bed, the night before I’m going to make bread, I take a tablespoo...

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Spent Grain Bread–We Brew Econo

...ment, as a flavoring for our wild yeast bread (recipe and instructions for making that bread here—we added 4.5 ounces of the spent grains to the dough–and we just threw them in whole without grinding them up as some folks on the internets suggest). The rich, smoky taste and the dark color these grains imparted to the bread makes us want to brew another batch of beer soon, if just to make bread. The spent grains we didn’t use for bread got fed to t...

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