Wild Yeast

Do you know Briana Brownlow of Figs With Bri? I don’t know her well, but I have enjoyed reading her blog over the last few months, and now she needs help. Bri is battling breast cancer. I am pleased to turn over today’s post to a group of Bri’s friendsGarrett (Vanilla Garlic)
Shankari (Stream of Consciousness)
Manisha (Indian Food Rocks)
Bee and Jai (Jugalbandi) who have organized a fundraising event to help meet her medical expenses. Please be as generous as you can in support of Bri and her family.

The Daring Bakers Light Opera Cake Company

presents

L’Opéra, A Cake in Five Acts

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Composed by Louis Clichy

Original Libretto by Dorie Greenspan, Tish Boyle and Timothy Moriarty

Libretto Adaptation by Ivonne and Lis

Conducted and Directed by Susan

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This evening’s performance is dedicated to cancer survivor and honorary Daring Baker Barbara, creator of LiveSTRONG With A Taste of Yellow, in recognition of her inspiring strength and love of life. The performance is also dedicated to Susan’s dad, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2002, and among whose favorite things were opera and cake.

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What’s wrong with this miche? Absolutely nothing.

I’ve written about this high-extraction miche before. It’s one of my favorite breads, and this loaf I made yesterday did not disappoint. I used the same recipe, same method as always. But something differentiates this particular miche from the other high-extraction miches that have gone before it, and indeed from all the other breads I have ever posted here.

This bread was made with tap water. Not only that, but the starter that leavened it was raised from scratch on tap water too. Now maybe this doesn’t seem like a breakthrough to you, but it is to me.

We drink and cook with tap water. Tap water is, by most accounts, safer, cheaper, and more environmentally responsible than bottled. But until now I have always used bottled water for starters and doughs, because I had heard that chlorine or chloramine (chlorine’s more stable, longer-lasting cousin) would inhibit yeast activity. Frankly, I’m not sure why I bought into this without my eyebrows raising even so much as a flicker. I am usually the world’s biggest skeptic, and certainly the phrase “don’t believe everything you hear” is one my kids are sick and tired of hearing from me.

Then a couple of weeks ago, Jeremy (Stir the Pots) challenged me. Is bottled water really better for bread? It was a fair question; time to find out for myself.

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Remember when you were twelve and you broke your arm skateboarding? You had a cool cast that everyone signed, and you got to have your mom write out your homework, and within a month you were back out there on the skateboard, good as new. No big deal.

Osteoporosis isn’t like that. It’s a huge deal. It doesn’t take a major trauma to break osteoporotic bones, and fractures related to this devastating disease are a leading cause of hospitalization, disability, and even death. Did you know that an adult over age 50 who fractures a hip has a one in four chance of dying within one year?

While those most likely to suffer the effects of osteoporosis are women over age 50, the time to think about preventing it is now, no matter what your age and gender. Bone mass is largely acquired before the age of 20, but good health habits at any age will help. Don’t smoke. Do regular weight-bearing exercise. Get enough Vitamin D. And three words at the top of the list: Calcium, Calcium, Calcium! Many people just don’t get enough of this critical bone-forming mineral.

In recognition of National Osteoporosis Prevention Month and to promote awareness of the disease, Susan of Food Blogga is hosting Beautiful Bones. The task is to make a dish with one or more calcium-rich ingredients. I chose to give hummus and pita bread, a favorite around here, a calcium boost by making a few adaptations to my everyday recipes.

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Like desserts, pastries are not something I bake often. We eat crusty hearth breads around the clock, including for breakfast. But for some reason, the BreadBakingDay #10 theme of Breakfast Breads, hosted this month by talented baker Melissa (Baking a Sweet Life), put me in mind of Danish pastry. The flakier the better.

I intended to make a traditional laminated dough (many discrete layers of dough and butter). I don’t have a lot of experience with this, and definitely need to practice. Keeping the dough cold so the butter does not melt into it during the rolling and folding process is critical, and it takes the better part of a day because the dough has to be thoroughly re-chilled between roll-and-folds. So I set aside a day to work on this.

As it turned out, the weather on the designated day was uncooperative. A heat wave plus an un-air-conditioned kitchen do not create ideal conditions for laminating dough, and I chickened out wisely decided not to set myself up for failure. However, just as I convinced myself that I didn’t really want Danish after all, I serendipitously tuned in to the latest episode of the wonderful 1990’s series “Baking With Julia” [Child], which my PBS station has been airing lately.

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When I wrote about the illness of our bread-loving cat last summer, I didn’t know how much longer she would be with us. As it turned out, Stripes made quite a remarkable recovery and was almost her old self for many months — until a few weeks ago, when her chronically failing kidneys started making her sick again. This time, she didn’t bounce back, and she died today.

Farewell, my little friend. I didn’t always like you, but in the end I loved you. Wherever you are, I hope you’re dining sumptuously on mice, tuna, and a nice crusty loaf of sourdough.

This final installment in the Baker’s Percentage tutorial series concerns breads that are made with preferments. (A preferment is a poolish, biga, sponge, sourdough starter, etc., where a portion of the flour is fermented prior to the mixing of the final dough.) If you missed the first three parts, you’ll want to read them before diving into this one. An index of the entire tutorial is here.

A preferment can be thought of in different ways. On one hand, it is a dough unto itself, and it has a BP formula all its own. But a preferment is also an ingredient in the final dough.

Look at this formula for baguette dough made with a poolish. The blue table shows the formula for the final dough, scaled to make 2340 g of dough. The yellow table shows the formula for the poolish, scaled to make 936 g, the amount needed for the final dough. Note that the formula for each part is based on the amount of flour needed for that part. Also note that the poolish is listed as an ingredient in the final dough formula.

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Happy Mother’s Day to my mom J, my mother-in-law MJ, and my sister L: three of the best mothers I know!

Rustic fruit desserts are my favorite, and I almost always order one if it’s on the menu when we eat out. (My husband likes to guess what dessert I’ll choose, and he’s usually right because my taste is so predictable.) However, unless there’s a birthday or holiday to be celebrated, or a Daring Bakers challenge to try to conquer, I rarely bake desserts of any kind at home.

But the rhubarb and kumquats that were yesterday’s impulse buys at the farmer’s market got me pining for something chunky and tart and sweet and coarse and juicy and messy and perfect in its imperfection. A galette of the rhubarb and kumquats along with some of the other market bounty — strawberries and basil — seemed about right.

I’m submitting this as my first entry for Weekend Herb Blogging, the venerable and popular event founded by Kalyn (Kalyn’s Kitchen) and hosted this week by Anh of Food Lover’s Journey. I think both rhubarb and kumquats are interesting enough to merit “featured plant” status, so I randomly picked the kumquats.

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