100% Sourdough Rye Bread - Peter Reinhart

Ah, a 100% Rye bread is always a challenge. Some slight differences here :
the formula uses barm which I found interesting. Previous formulas used Rye starter instead. Also a coarse whole rye soaker is used.
The bread is made with white rye flour which is again interesting I think. I liked it a lot and making the dough was easier than I thought. I like the taste of the bread a lot. I noticed a slight taste difference (more acidic) in the one boule I left overnight in the fridge.

Poilâne Style Miche - Peter Reinhart

I finally made this bread from the Peiter Reinhart BBA book. It has been a while since I made bread out of this book so I tried this one. It uses barm starter and sifted whole-wheat flour. I made a slight variation. I did not sift the whole-wheat flour and I divided the loaf in 3 smaller loaves. So it is not exactly as in the book but very close.

Vermont Sourdough whole wheat - Hamelman

Ah, one of my favorite breads. A good Vermont Soudough is delicious. Wait, is this really a Vermont Sourdough when it is made in Belgium? Maybe I should call this a Flanders Sourdough? Anyway, this loaf also had two folds and the result was very good. I let the loaf retard overnight in the fridge and baked it the next day. Here is the result and I am loving it!

Happy Easter!

Uh, no baking today... no time at all... But, Happy Easter!

Boulangerie Paul - Maison Dandoy

I travelled to Brussels today and while I was there to visit an exhibition I decided to go down town and get a loaf from Boulangerie Paul. I mentioned this baker in a previous travel post. I was happy to see that Paul has a couple of bakeries in Belgium so I won't need to travel to France to taste some delicious bread.
One thing I thought that was a little over the top when I paid for the loaf. I paid Five Euro for one loaf! Paul must make at least 4 Euro pure profit on this loaf! It seems like a rye levain loaf. I like good bread, but paying this amount of money is just too much!
While in Brussels I went to Maison Dandoy too. I purchased some "Pain a la Greque" and some "speculoos". I swear both were awesome! I made speculoos too. But mine just has not this great taste. I can highly recommend to visit both places when you happen to be in Brussels.

Barm Bread - Dan Lepard

I made the barm with organic beer. This bread is very, very tasty. One of the most delicious breads I made lately. I do have to warn the readers of this blog though. This bread takes a long, very long time to double in size when proofing. Do not, I repeat, do not even think about under proof these loaves. The result will be very bad when you try to attempt this.
I did use different flours (rye and whole wheat) in this bread as Dan Lepard mentions in the book. The result was outstanding. The crumb, crust and taste was awesome. I cannot wait to make it again, and in fact I will do it this week.

Five-Grain Loaf - Dan Lepard

5 Grain loaf, contains whole wheat, Rye, Bread flour, millet, oat meal, honey, molasses,yeast, salt and white leaven. I used also cooked wheat grains in it, I am
curious how the crumb structure and taste will be like. Let's find out tomorrow morning.
;-)

Rice Bread - Dan Lepard

I wanted to try this one because I never made a bread before with so much rice in it. I made Peter Reinhart's Struan bread but that contains only a small amount of cooked rice.
This bread should be baked in a Pullman loaf pan, but I don't have one so I made this in an open loaf pan. I do like the taste, but it is kinda sweet because of the two tablespoons honey in the dough. I did not like the hard baked rice grains in the crust, but I guess this won't happen when you use a Pullman loaf pan. Mmmm, I should get one to try to find out if this is correct.

Simple Milk loaf - Dan Lepard

Well, this is like the description, a simple milk loaf containing milk, some maple syrup and also some butter, flour and salt. It has a very light crumb structure and reminds me at Brioche, with a less rich taste though.

Raisin Cinnamon loaf - Dan Lepard

The second bread I baked from the Dan Lepard book. 50% raisins, all raisin breads should have this much raisins in them. I love it!

Mill Loaf - Dan Lepard

The first loaf I made from my new Dan Lepard book. Like I mentioned before, interesting kneading method. It was easy to do. The result is great I think, a beautiful loaf with a light sour taste.
I know I always seem to use the same slash pattern. I don't know why, might be boring to some, but I just like it. ;-)

Books

Yes! I finally got the Dan Lepard book and there are two loaves waiting to get baked.
I like this book a lot. This book has very nice pics in it and some interesting stories as well. I liked his kneading technique, which is not a lot of work, but does take some time. I found his method easy to plan when you are around the house whole day. I assume the loaves will taste very good because of the slow rise. I also put one in the fridge to retard over night. I hope the one in the fridge will taste even better, but we'll see about that tomorrow.

As you can see, it is not the largest pile of books, but I do own some already. My absolute favorite is the Hamelman book, but reading this blog I guess you already noticed. :-)

Bread of Love and Honey Oat meal bread

I both made these loaves before. I love the 'Bread Of Love!' The scent of red wine, the pine nuts, the figs who give the loaf crunch. This loaf is incredibly tasty, so I had to make it again.

Is there anything negative about this bread? Well if you don't mind spending a few bucks then there is no problem at all. But for those of you amongst us who don't want to spend a rather high amount of money this is a quite expensive loaf. For instance, the organic pine nuts alone costed me like €4.00 for 100 grams! The bottle of wine was like €3.00 and the figs also €4.00. So the total without flour or salt is like €11.00.

I don't mind paying this kind of money to create something delicious like this, but some people might find this just too much money for a loaf.
I guess that if these loaves were sold at a bakery a lot of people would not buy them because the baker would have to ask too much money to cover the expenses.
Even though this is not the cheapest bread out there, it sure is one of the tastiest!