Building an oven

My dreams of building my own bread oven have been rekindled, with the focus on it being a portable oven on a trailer, and possibly even electric depending on what my research brings up (I know, strange but trying to keep a wood fired oven at a constant temp sounds like a PITA). So here's a link to an oven building forum to research later.

A random bread search on Google lead me to this web page article.

I'll be back to baking tomorrow, this week has been busy and the loaves I've tried to bake ended up forgotten during bench proofing, making for one slack, sucky loaf and another dried out that I just tossed without baking. I owe someone a loaf of whole wheat, if for no other reason than my son just busted one of her tree ornaments today.

Bread without salt.

Someone asked me about Tuscan bread, which is apparently a Florence, Italy specialty. My quick research seems to indicate it's a saltless bread, used with foods that provide most of the flavor. A NYT article about it can be found here.

Baker's Mark from a silicone baking mat

I did a quick prototype baker's mark from a silicone baking mat that I didn't care for (much prefer the baking parchment). The results were promising. A friend that does scrapbooking is going to experiment and see if she has something that can cut the lettering neater.

parchment paper delight...

You may notice an odd angle in this picture, that's because it was taken my my 6 year old. Recently I ordered more parchment paper online, which I had done before but this time I sought out an entire package of 500 full sheet pan sized sheets, which fit a standard home sheet pan when torn in half. Prices for the exact same package ranged from $44 delivered to over $109, depending on where you looked. I ended up getting mine from here because they had the best price including shipping. So now I have a massive package of huge sheets of baking parchment, which should last me over a year even with my vast amounts of baking. They work real well when I bake on a stone in the oven, no sticking at all and easy dismount from the peel. It also keeps cheese from dripping onto the stone if you work carefully.

Baker's Marks

I ran across a link about baker's marks, used to identify the baker that created the loaf in medieval times. Like a moth to a flame, I'm feeling the need to create my own. The writer of the article had theirs made out of silver, I'm thinking that I'll try ceramics for my first try. Clay and a glaze just might do the job.

Here is the link.
http://whirlwind-design.com/madbaker/marks.html

Fridge Bread, Loaf 2

Sorry, no pictures of the second loaf. I proofed it for about 2 hours, so it spread out a bit. The loaf didn't taste bad, but I wasn't thrilled with the results. I think part of what works about the method is that the cold dough holds it's shape better. I'll try it again sometime, with some wheat and high gluten flour for the loaf, to see if I can make something with a bit more fluff.