First attempt at ‘kid-friendly’ sweet potato bread was interesting 😅. Need to refine those measurements next time. Still, made a nice crusty bit to suck on 👶.

Back to sourdough after a holiday… having a go with a 100% wholemeal levain which seems to be working well.

Baked 6 loves today, which is the most I’ve done in one batch (I gave one away before getting to no. 6). Some interesting differences:

Perhaps a weird shaping error? No issues with taste though!

A couple of New York-ish pizzas cooked in a home oven on a baking steel. ‘Upside down’ Margherita (which needed less cheese next time) and an aubergine, lemon zest & juice, pepper and vegan mozz inspired by one I had at Omnipollos hatt in Stockholm. Still tweaking this but love the baking steel. % ⬇️

Further exploration of oat porridge bread & I think this is my favourite so far. Based on Vanessa Kimbell’s ‘Sourdough School’ formula with honey but with the hydration dialled down a bit vs the book, as it could easily end up in the high 90%s after adding cooked porridge!

30% YQ Population wholemeal in these. This was developed by the John Innes Centre and the team at Wakelyns from the ORC. They used 20 ‘parent’ wheat varieties to create 190 crosses and mixed the seeds. The increased diversity is more sustainable & led to greater ‘yield’ and ‘quality’ (hence ‘YQ’).

Ran out of yeast so made some sourdough grandma pizza. I always feel like you trade a bit of texture and lightness for flavour when you use sourdough rather than IDY for pizza. If anyone knows how achieve both with sourdough lemme know! Aldi vegan pepperoni is decent… watch it disappear after Jan!

20% Merchants Mill light spelt, 76% hydration. Definitely lighter than expecting so might play well with a wholemeal flour. Someone’s interested already! #sourdough #breadsky

This is my sourdough starter/levain. It’s 50% hydration & made of a mix of white & wholemeal flour, which may surprise people who follow the Tartine playbook of batter-like 100% hydrated starters. Inspired by the Bread Code & Wayne Caddy’s experiments with lower gluten flour from the UK & Europe.

Sourdough focaccia v2. Lowered hydration a bit & it held its strength. It caught a bit on the bottom so a lesson from this one is to take it off the baking steel after 10-15 mins or bake at a lower temperature (I was thinking pizza and cranked the oven). Intentionally baked hard so not burned imo!

I had a big bag of Gilchesters Organics’ farmhouse light brown flour. Despite the ‘light’ tag this is is a high extraction flour. What you might lose in photogenic holey crumb, you more than make up for in flavour & you don’t get the dense texture often associated with pure wholemeal.

I love the ‘Caddy Clasp’ shaping technique for sourdough boules and batards (pioneered by Wayne Caddy of Sourdough Slingers) for its simplicity and consistency, but it can lead to some….. unexpected results 🍑

Had a recent urge to get back into sourdough focaccia… here’s my last attempt from back in June 2023!

I think I went a bit overboard with the hydration (aimed for 90%) and I think it lacked the strength for mega bubbz 🫧.

Taking inspiration from Chatsworth Bakehouse and Flout Pizza on the next one.

Porridge sourdough bread, in which cooked oats are added after the initial mixing of ingredients, was a bit of an obsession after trying it at Tartine. I’ve recently come back to it and struggle a bit with consistency but am happy with these ones.

75% hydration
15% firm levain
40% cooked oats

New Year’s Eve Detroit Style Pizza made with leftover Christmas Gorgonzola dolce, mozzarella, mushroom, potato, onion, béchamel and chives.

Can’t remember exact stats, but it was around 70% hydration yeasted dough with oil and diastatic malt powder. Love how well this style handles toppings!

My Instagram has basically become a sourdough & pizza page so I guess this should be no different?

50% Shipton Mill No. 4
30% Wildfarmed T80
20% Merchants Mill Wholemeal

15% Firm levain
76% Hydration
2.2% Salt