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Donate for Vermont

Susan — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 01:23:22 +0000

This is Norwich Sourdough. It was the first sourdough recipe I posted on this blog, and is still one of my most popular recipes. Many people have written to tell me that it was the first sourdough recipe they had success with. This feedback has been wonderfully rewarding for me, but now I am asking for a little bit more in return.

Norwich Sourdough was named in honor of Norwich, Vermont, a lovely small town I had the pleasure of calling home for several years before settling in California. Norwich is also the home of King Arthur Flour, whose Vermont Sourdough bread was the inspiration for Norwich Sourdough.

Now my heart is aching for the people of Vermont, where the havoc wreaked by Hurricane Irene has left thousands of people without their homes and/or their livelihoods. Although the town of Norwich seems to have come through without devastating damage, it will take years for much of the rest of the state to recover, and it makes me cry.

If you have enjoyed Norwich Sourdough, or have learned from or been inspired by anything you have found here on Wild Yeast, I ask you to consider thanking me by making a donation to one of the following organizations assisting in the relief effort in this beautiful state:

Vermont Disaster Relief Fund

Vermont Red Cross

Vermont Foodbank

Tools: Baking Bang for Your Buck

Susan — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 03:31:05 +0000

People often ask me what I recommend as the most important tools to get first, if you have a limited budget for baking equipment. These items are listed in roughly the reverse order in which you could pry them from my hands. It’s also not a bad list of gift ideas for any bread baker in your life.*

Baking stone. It’s hard to get good crusty hearth loaves without one (and here’s why). High-end is the Fibrament, but a less expensive stone, or even unglazed terra cotta tiles, will do the job, although they’re more prone to breakage. $10 – $100.
Steam set-up for your oven. This is not an item you can buy; it’s rigged from inexpensive components. Steam is essential for most crusty breads. Read more about the why and how of steam here. $15 – $25.
Bench scraper (aka bench knife, dough scraper, or dough cutter), like this one. Cuts ciabatta dough into pieces, lifts sticky pieces of dough off the counter, and cleans your counter of tenacious dough bits and loose flour. About $12.
Digital scale. It is my personal mission in life to see that everyone measures their baking ingredients by weight, not volume. More about that here. I like the My Weigh i5000 and the Escali Primo. $25 – $50.
Instant-read thermometer. Dough temperature is important for proper fermentation. Read more about temperature here. A thermometer is also useful if you don’t know whether your loaf is fully baked yet. The Thermapen is wonderfully fast but pricey; this Taylor Digital Thermometer works fine for much less money. $15 – $90.
Small ingredients scale. Ingredients like yeast and salt that are usually called for in amounts of 10 grams or less are best weighed on a scale that has precision to a tenth of a gram. However, these ingredients also measure fairly well by volume, so this is not an essential tool. It’s nice to have, though. $20 – $40.
Stand mixer. Although nice to have, especially for certain doughs like bagels and brioche, most breads can be mixed just fine by hand, so a mixer is a lower priority. Mine is a KitchenAid 6-qt. and I recommend it. About $400.

*Note to my male friends on the appropriateness of these things as gifts to wives/girlfriends: For birthdays and other occasions, it might depend on the woman in question, and on the gift — mixer, probably; scale, perhaps; lava rocks, doubtful — but for anniversaries, just don’t do it! Trust me on this one.

“A Good Crust” Syndicated on BlogHer

Susan — Sat, 21 May 2011 13:57:11 +0000

I’m pleased and honored that my post “A Good Crust” has been syndicated on BlogHer. Please check it out there, where you’ll also find more terrific posts about food, family, politics, work, entertainment, and everything else!

Bake Sale for Japan

Susan — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 22:22:03 +0000

Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world. — Howard Zinn

When: Saturday, April 2, 2011; 10 a.m. – 2 p. m.

Where: Dozens of locations in the Bay Area and nationwide. I will bake for the San Jose event at Roy’s Station (197 Jackson Street).

Who: Professional and amateur bakers, cooks, artists, artisans, and musicians coming together around food to make something BIG happen.

How: Want to help? We’ll need bakers, artists, volunteers, and lots and lots of customers. If you live in the South Bay, please send offers of help to Paige Bayer at . If you live somewhere else, check out the national event page to learn more about a bake sale in your area.

Why: So we can donate BIG BUCKS to Peace Winds Japan.

Worth Its Salt

Susan — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 23:52:36 +0000

A recent commenter on one of my recipe posts remarked: “… my dough was very sticky not coming together. … Thinking it must be too wet, I added a little more flour to no avail. Then I realized I had forgotten to add the salt. Shortly after adding the salt the dough came together well. Is this coincidental, or does salt play more than a flavor enhancing role? “

This was absolutely not coincidental. Considered to be one of the four essential bread ingredients (along with flour, water, and yeast), salt does indeed do something more than loafing around and tasting good.

Salt affects dough texture, making it stronger and less sticky, as the commenter noticed.
Salt reduces oxidation of the dough during mixing. Oxidation causes the degradation of carotenoid pigments in the flour that contribute to flavor and crumb color.
Salt regulates yeast activity, causing fermentation to progress at a more consistent rate.
Salt affects shelf life. Because it attracts water, it can help keep bread from staling too quickly in a dry environment. However, in a humid environment, it can make the crust soggier.

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Come Bake With Me!

Susan — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 03:00:59 +0000

I am excited to announce that I will hold a bread baking workshop here in my Mountain View kitchen on Saturday, March 5.

– Update: The workshop is now sold out. Please contact me if you would like to be added to the waiting list, or to my mailing list for announcements of future workshops! –

What: Home bread baking workshop

When: Saturday, March 5, 2011; 9 a.m. to approximately 5 p.m.

Where: My kitchen in Mountain View, California

Why: Bread, learning, fun

I have already shared a lot of what I know about baking bread on this blog. But there are some things you just can’t convey with words and photos — you have to get your hands in the dough!

In this day-long workshop, we will bake two breads, one mixed by hand and one in a stand mixer. I will show you how I gauge dough consistency and gluten development, and shape boules and batards, with plenty of extra dough on hand for shaping practice. We will also talk about selection of ingredients, basic bread science, and setting up a home oven for hearth baking.

I will even feed you lunch!

If you’re interested, please contact me for pricing and details on how to sign up.

I hope to be baking with you soon!

– Update: The workshop is now sold out. Please contact me if you would like to be added to the waiting list, or to my mailing list for announcements of future workshops! –

Pizza in a Countertop Oven

Susan — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 03:54:36 +0000

If you have space for a countertop oven, I highly recommend one. It can replace your toaster, but a good-sized one can also do most of the things your regular oven can do — roast your chicken, broil your fish, bake your cookies, toast your nuts — using only a fraction of the energy of your big oven.

And if you have a baking stone, you can even bake a loaf of bread, or a pizza sized just right for one or two people.

I adored my Cuisinart Brick Oven when it worked, but after I had two of them quit on me in the space of three years (the top element died in one, the door spring in the other) it was time for a change. The Breville Smart Oven came to live here a few weeks ago, and the first hoop I had it jump through, other than toasting bagels (at which it performs marvelously, by the way) was my favorite white pizza — potatoes with rosemary and garlic.

For pizza, the hotter the oven the better, and a stone is essential for a crisp crust. The Cuisinart oven went up to 500F, but most countertop ovens, including the Breville, max out at 450F. Even so, I still got a pretty nice pizza, on the stone I saved from the defunct Cuisinart. Preheating the oven/stone for at 30 minutes gets the stone good and hot; skimp on this step and you risk an underdone crust.

Then there’s the question of how to get the pizza onto the stone in one piece. My regular peels are too big for the little oven, and my giant spatula is too small for a 10-inch pizza. Corrugated cardboard to the rescue! I cut a piece just wide enough to fit into the oven cavity. After rolling the crust out on the counter, I dusted my homemade peel generously with a mixture of white and semolina flours, and assembled the pizza on it. It slid off and onto the stone like a charm.

Get the recipe…

SFBI Video: Shaping a Baguette

Susan — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 16:45:24 +0000

The San Francisco Baking Institute, from which I graduated earlier this year, has launched a series of baking videos as a companion to its comprehensive textbook, Advanced Bread and Pastry.

I can’t comment on the series in general as I haven’t seen it, and there is an annual access fee, but one of the free sample videos is on shaping a baguette. It’s worth a look. It explains the process in clear detail, but starts from the point where the dough (about 350 grams) has already been preshaped into a cylinder.

Read on for how to preshape the dough…

This Will Amaze and Delight You

Susan — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 07:34:21 +0000

World Class Baking

Susan — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 22:23:36 +0000

Mike Zakowski loads breads and rolls into the oven.

Last month, when many people had World Cup Soccer on their minds, I was privileged to meet a small group of hugely talented bakers who came together at the San Francisco Baking Institute to prepare for a very different world cup: the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie. In the 2012 “World Cup of Bread Baking,” which is said to be the Olympics of the baking world, teams from twelve countries will compete for Gold, Silver, and Bronze medals as they promote international awareness of baking as a highly skilled craft.

Craig Ponsford, Chariman of the Bread Bakers Guild of America, sponsor of the USA team, graciously spent some time discussing the history and structure of this prestigious competition.

The Coupe du Monde was founded in 1992 by Christian Vabret of the Ecole Française de Boulangerie d’Aurillac to honor the art and craft of artisan baking, promote baking education and technical skill, and foster international goodwill and appreciation of traditional regional artisan breads and techniques. It is held in Paris every three to four years in conjunction with the trade show Europain. The previous Coupe du Monde’s top three teams are invited back to participate in the next event. Other countries must compete for the remaining nine slots through four regional qualifying competitions, the Louis LeSaffre Cups.

Jeremey Gadouas works on Viennoiserie.

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