Country bread for brunch

I wanted to make a multi grain country bread for a while. so I started out making a poolish on Thursday night.
On Friday night I went to Park n save to get from kibbled grain from the bulk section and then go home to make the dough.

After the dough rise double in size and put it in the fridge overnight.

On Saturday morning took the dough out from the fridge and wait for it to return to room temperature and shape it into a ball and let it rise again for 40mins. Bake it for 35mins and it's ready. However I found it is still wet inside next time I will bake it for 40mins instead.

More bagels

Previously I wasn't very happy with the blisters on my bagels and have done some research about it and found out that they were caused by long retardation process. However long retardation is a good thing because the bagels will have more flavor.


I have found this bagel recipe online using the poolish method.


So I decided to make more bagels but this time use a poolish starter to enhance the flavor but a shorter retardation in the fridge. This time I keep my bagels in the fridge for 7 hours instead of overnight.


Here are my bagels using poolish. The blisters on the crust are less obvious and they still taste pretty good and smell nice.

Scoring baguette challenge

Scoring baguette is not as easy as one might think.
I decided to ask the experts in The fresh loaf forum and post my question there.
Using my of the tips from the comments:
1. higher temperature, i set the oven to 220 in fan bake
2. score slightly deeper

I wanted to underprove the baguette a little but this time I was districted and I think the baguette actually was overproved.

Anyway here is the result. The scorings are still not as wide open as I wanted! Well I have wait for the next weekend to try it again.

Bagels Blisters

I used to think that bagels is difficult to make before I got into my bread making hobby. When I read Cril Hitz's Baking Artisan Breads I didn't find it too intimidating so I decided to give it try.
His method takes 2 days to make the bagels, making the dough and shape the bagels on day 1 and then boil and bake the bagels on day 2.

I noticed that all my bagels crust have fill with many tiny bubbles and I was wondering why. I googled it but I couldn't really got a definite answer. So I post my question at The fresh loaf where all the artisan bread bakers exchange their experience and knowledge. The post is here but I have learned that it is normal for a bread that develop this kind of condition from the long cold fermentation and that's nothing wrong with it.

One of the posters quoted

"Bubbles on the crust, a result of retarding raw loaves at refrigeration temperatures, are well received in North America. In France, bubbles are considered a defect".

Quote from Raymond Calvel's The Taste of Bread.

Now my next challenge is to make bagels without long fermentation but still taste as good with good texture.

Full of blisters on the crust

Most people don't mind my bagels that have blisters on them, because they taste very good.

In search of the perfect baguette

It is pretty hard to make perfect baguettes at home without specially equipments like baking stone,steamer oven, etc.  However my goal is to bake a good looking baguette with crispy crust and tender texture inside.

I have been baking baguettes using Ciril Hitz's Baking Artisan Bread: 10 Expert Formulas for Baking Better Bread at Home recipes for a few time. The result is not bad, but I've never got a good scoring on my baguettes.

Today I tried it again after I've done lots of reading about scoring baguette, however I still failed. The scores didn't open as big as I wanted it.

EPI Baguette (Épi de Blé Baguette)

Last week I made the EPI first time, today I made the Epi again. Like last week I used the recipes from the book I borrowed from the libary Baking Artisan Bread: 10 Expert Formulas for Baking Better Bread at Home by Ciril Hitz. This time instead of using the Kenwood chef to knead the dough, I used my Panasonic bread machine to do that me. It did save me a lot of time and trouble. However because of the hydration level of the recipes is bit high, some of the dough stuck at the bottom of the bread machine and doesn't come off without using my fingers to scrape them out.

The dough was divided and shaped into 2 logs

Cut the logs with a pair of kitchen scissors

Put them on a rack to cool down

Have them for lunch

Hello world!

Hi it's me.
Programmer by day ... baker by night.
I love bread! Especially Hong Kong Style bread!
Ben