Mellow Bakers in July

Another month of Mellow Baking from Jeffrey Hamelman's "Bread". There were four recipe to choose from this month, I made all of them and as it is the last day of July here are the pictures and my thoughts about them.

70 % sourdough rye with a rye flour soaker and whole-wheat flour

This bread turned out quite well for a bread with lots of rye flour. It was too wet so I added extra (white) flour, I guess about 50 grams. This may have helped a little to help it stick together. I love the way those slices are shaped, because of the baking in the pullman pan. It was quite sour tasting/smelling, but had a good texture.

80 % sourdough rye with a rye-flour soaker

This is real dense bread with even more rye flour. And as I'm not a rye flour nor a sourdough lover, this is just not for me. It reminds me a lot of German breads and that's just not my cup of tea. It was a personal triomph though that the bread wasn't all flat and bricky. My dear husband who's not a real sourdough fan, but loves rye ate it all. Thinly sliced is best I guess.

Bialys

This recipe I have seen in a lot of bread baking books, but never made it before. Even so the recipe is appealing, cause bread with onions always smells great and can be really lovely. The pink colour of the onions is because I used a red onion (I was out of normal onions), I also mixed in a little poppy seed. I was a bit disappointed with them I'm afraid, that was because the onion was not really cooked/baked, so you ate partly raw onion which was a minus. Did I use too much so they couldn't cook through or is this the way they're supposed to be? Don't know, but I prefer them baked before placing them on the dough.

French Bread

Wonderful baguettes, quick and crispy crust... but again some minus points, not with the depth and taste of a baguette with a real retarded dough or with a pâte fermentée. We ate them freshly out of the oven when we had a BBQ, so there's not much to beat warm and fresh baked bread. But I prefer other recipes for a real baguette.

So all and all not my favorite recipes, we'll see what next month will bring!