Levain :

Rustic Bread ( Natural grape levain)

53 1

Building a levain "à la Gérard" - Step 1

53 1
Gérard sees pure levain (as he likes to call his starter) as the only way for a baker to truly personalize his bread: if he conducts his fermentation skillfully, no one will ever be able to reproduce the exact same taste. (I say "he" for[...]

NEW! (Sort of) Pain au Levain

53 1

Pain au Levain with Chia Seeds

53 1
Trying a new ingredient or a new formula excites me.   If I find a new method or a new ingredient to make my daily bread the next morning, I often feel too excited to sleep the night before.    I read about the Chia seed in[...]

Pain au Levain Nature: Take Three

53 1
On Sunday I made these rolls using my natural leaven. It was with the making of these that I realized that my leaven is pretty weak. The rolls looked and tasted good, but still too dense. The dough did not rise very well. So, I think I am going[...]

Hamelman's Pain au levain in a pot

53 1
This weekend tried out Hamelman's Pain au levain recipe, but with an extended proofing time and cooked in a cast iron pot. After a litlle initial kneading (12 kneads every 10 mins for the first half hour) I left it to proof in bulk at room[...]

100% whole-grain pizza ("au levain")

53 1
The last thing I thought I would end up doing this summer is to go back to no-knead doughs. I had been there , done that , not been convinced that it was really for me and moved on. But here we are in our little camp by the river[...]

A Bread Salad with Five-Grain Levain!

53 1
My local fruit and vegetable store recently has a few new varieties of pumpkins. I picked up an attractive looking pumpkin (pictured below) when I was there about a week ago and I asked Con the fruiterer where it came from.  He looked at[...]

"Local Breads" - Pain au levain complet

53 1
Whole wheat sourdough miche, inspired by " Pain Poilane " is the first bread in the 2nd chapter of Daniel Leader's book.  So unlike the first chapter which covered Parisian breads, both yeasted and made with liquid levain, it would[...]

Very Cheesy Whole-wheat Stromboli (au levain)

53 1
I do love eating open sandwiches with  a thick slice cheese. I eat  them every morning with fresh vegetables and I'm never bored. I was planning to make pizza but I had it last month. I had a lot of pizza dough so I decided to make[...]