Ms. Ingie wrote:I made a second batch of sourdough cinnamon raisin bread yesterday. The dough is a dream and uses starter discard. I made sure that my rectangle of dough was larger this time and was very liberal with the cinnamon sugar mixture and a mix of regular and golden raisins.

The family loves it and it makes delicious French toast.

Is this the KA recipe? It looks great!

irisarbor wrote:

Ms. Ingie wrote:I made a second batch of sourdough cinnamon raisin bread yesterday. The dough is a dream and uses starter discard. I made sure that my rectangle of dough was larger this time and was very liberal with the cinnamon sugar mixture and a mix of regular and golden raisins.

The family loves it and it makes delicious French toast.

Is this the KA recipe? It looks great!

Yes it is!
https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes ... ead-recipe

Hi,

Yesterday, once I was sure the weather would be cooler, I started two loaves of bread: a savory Cheesy Babka with ricotta and herbs from a Melissa Clark recipe in this week's Trib plus a no-knead bread.

I had never made a Babka and was unfamiliar with how it was made. As usual, it was youtube to the rescue on how to shape it. The demo I watched was with chocolate.



The ricotta filling in this recipe was a moving target who wanted to squeeze out of every corner possible. I might have tried to finesse it better, but I pretty much was glad it did not vomit all its contents onto the counter.



Baked it looked far better than I had hoped. There was a choice to use all-purpose or bread flour, I went with all-purpose. This bread tasted pretty good with a nice soft texture.

For the almost no-knead bread, I saw a video suggesting to shape your bread twice at 30-minute intervals to improve its structure. I did it with my bread today and was favorably impressed with how it kept its shape when baking.



I have a few more cooking projects before this fine weather ends.

Regards,
Cathy2

Yesterday's adventure in sourdough was chocolate sourdough bread with chocolate chips and dried cherries.

I ended up with the loaf upside down and didn't want to mess with it too much to flip it over, so it's a little rough looking. Who cares how it looks? Delicious!

Recipe here: https://www.theclevercarrot.com/2014/10/sourdough-noir/#_a5y_p=2684412

Ms. Ingie wrote:Yesterday's adventure in sourdough was chocolate sourdough bread with chocolate chips and dried cherries.

I ended up with the loaf upside down and didn't want to mess with it too much to flip it over, so it's a little rough looking. Who cares how it looks? Delicious!

Recipe here: https://www.theclevercarrot.com/2014/10/sourdough-noir/#_a5y_p=2684412

this looks gorgeous. i remember fondly the chocolate cherry bread (maybe not the same sourdough recipe?) you brought me years ago when i was laid up with a broken femur. homemade bread can't fix a broken bone, but it is good for the spirit!

HI,

Do you make an effort to cover up the cherries to avoid them burning during baking?

Regards,
Cathy2

Cathy2 wrote:HI,

Do you make an effort to cover up the cherries to avoid them burning during baking?

Regards,
Cathy2

Yes, really tried to make sure cherries and chocolate chips were covered with dough while I shaped it. The leftover bread is currently being made into bread pudding.

Tonight's dinner will be grilled vegetable sandwiches. Made focaccia with sourdough discard to use for the sandwich bread. It's a bit thin. Baked it on a pizza stone and shouldn't have stretched it to cover the entire surface. We'll see how it tastes in about 45 minutes.

Haven’t felt like baking. Haven’t felt like feeding my starters. Haven’t felt like making a sweet stiff starter either. But I did.

https://breadtopia.com/sourdough-hokkai ... tangzhong/

Hi- I was in the downtown Evanston Whole Foods store this evening, and they actually had King Arthur bread flour in stock. It was $6.45, and so it was not cheap, but it was available. They also had KA organic bread flour for sale. I know it was over $9 for a five pound bag. I did not see any whole wheat flour or yeast.

NFriday wrote:Hi- I was in the downtown Evanston Whole Foods store this evening, and they actually had King Arthur bread flour in stock. It was $6.45, and so it was not cheap, but it was available. They also had KA organic bread flour for sale. I know it was over $9 for a five pound bag. I did not see any whole wheat flour or yeast.

South Loop Costco had the 12# bags of KA AP in stock for under $7 about a week ago.

I have enough flour for now but I too am slowly noticing a few bags of KA on the shelves in the shops.

Do you "Knead" starter? I can supply some in a physically safe manner if you do. Also, did you check the refrigerated section for yeast? I have seen it there instead of on the baking aisle in a few neighborhood shops.

If people need yeast, please PM me your address. I can mail you a couple of ounces from my Red Star Active Dry yeast.

If you want more than that, and are willing to pay cost and mailing, I can keep a watch for you. I see it around here every week. One and two pound vac packs, the small envelopes, and jars. Depends on the week and where I find it, but I've found Red Star, SAF, Fleischmann's, and Lallemand Instaferm.

I've also been seeing KA bread and AP flour around here, so it must be slowing showing up in stores.

Best of luck.

Mariano's Glenview West (Willow and Sanders) was well stocked in flour (including King Arthur AP, bread and Whole Wheat) and yeast including jarred fast rise and machine style. Still it's 2x the pice of the AP King Arthur at Costco

Sanabel bakery had 1 lb bags of instant yeast the last time I was there (about 1 week ago).

I found 2 Gold Medal Bread Flour in 10 bags on the shelf at Winco this week. Only took 1 bag, just under $7 for it. They also had lots of Fermipan Instant yeast, 500 g bags, for under $4. And jars of Red Star Active Dry Yeast as well as the envelopes of both Red Star and Fleischmann's.

When I was in Jewel last night, I noticed that there was lots of KA bread flour and lots of yeast. I think people have decided that it is too hot to bake bread right now.

Given how easily you seem to be finding it in Evanston, I'm mystified about why the Jewel stores near me (two in Mundelein and one in Libertyville) are not stocking bread flour. And it's not just da Jewels; I have looked for it at two Aldi stores, Mariano's, Sunset, and Woodman's near me.

Aldi's has never carried bread flour. It is only the last three weeks that I have noticed yeast and bread flour. It has been too hot for a lot of people to bake bread, and plus some people are returning back to work.

When I was at Jewel on Wednesday though I did not get there until 8:00 pm, and I was surprised to find some decent toilet paper. When I bought toilet paper last month, the only two choices I had were TP from Mexico or store brand. The Mexican TP was just a dollar, and it was okay, but I am not buying it again. I am down to my last roll of that TP. I ended up getting some of the bamboo TP that was $3 on Wednesday, and a roll of recycled TP that was marked 20/$10. When I checked out, I was only charged a dime for it.

Maybe try Target for bread flour or Meijer's if you have one close to you. When I go home to Michigan, I always stop at the Meijer's in Benton Harbor to get KA whole wheat and white whole wheat. It is way cheaper than I can get it here.

does anyone have a beloved recipe for a nice crusty-ish good-for-sandwiches bread that doesn't use a sourdough starter?

annak--

I've been making kenji's no-knead bread in the Dutch oven for several months now and it is absolutely positively satisfactory as a crusty, open-crumb bread. I love it!
I start it at 19h the evening before, and have bread by 10h the next morning. Simple as can be.

Geo

https://www.seriouseats.com/2020/05/kenji-no-knead-bread-beer.html

Geo wrote:annak--

I've been making kenji's no-knead bread in the Dutch oven for several months now and it is absolutely positively satisfactory as a crusty, open-crumb bread. I love it!
I start it at 19h the evening before, and have bread by 10h the next morning. Simple as can be.

Geo

https://www.seriouseats.com/2020/05/kenji-no-knead-bread-beer.html

Roger that. I wait a bit longer and our only problem is that the bread doesn't last as long as our appetite for it!

thank you! i made this recently (with 3 days in fridge as recommended) and i couldn't decide if it was appreciably better than the NYT no knead bread. sounds like you don't do the fridge days?

Fridge days are certainly not necessary, but they will give you a better tasting bread. Same with pizza dough.

Sunset, Highland Park, had a large supply of KA bread flour ( 12.7% protein ) today.

For those iso instant yeast, 1-pound pouches of SAF Instant yeast are available at Amazon for $7.99. 1-pound pouches of Red Star Active Dry yeast are available at Amazon for $9.39.

Neither ultra-cheap but both readily available and certainly approaching the realm of reasonable, price-wise.

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:For those iso instant yeast, 1-pound pouches of SAF Instant yeast are available at Amazon for $7.99. 1-pound pouches of Red Star Active Dry yeast are available at Amazon for $9.39.

Neither ultra-cheap but both readily available and certainly approaching the realm of reasonable, price-wise.

=R=

Stored in a freezer ziplock-style bag in the freezer and it should last indefinitely. It's about the cost of 3 commercial bakery loaves of bread so sometimes I look at these purchases that way. #breakeven

L'Shana Tovah!

Dave,

For somebody who never baked a loaf of bread until very recently, you are doing yourself proud!

Happy New Year!

Regards,
CAthy2

Cathy2 wrote:Dave,

For somebody who never baked a loaf of bread until very recently, you are doing yourself proud!

Happy New Year!

Regards,
CAthy2

Thank you ma’am!

Just a curiosity question that I could not find the answer on the Googles.

Most no-knead recipes call for tightly covering the container that the dough was made in while initially rising so that CO2 builds up. Why do you want the build up of CO2 ?