I never tried this combination of exotic fruits in this way. A curd from mango and fresh kiwi make a wonderful match. Put all this into a pie shell, add some decoration and a bit of love and you'll impress anyone with such a tart.

 
If you wonder why you should bake bread at such low hydration, I can tell you that testing the extremes comes with a lot of lessons learned. Learning how the dough behaves in extreme conditions provide you with the knowledge to apply the appropriate techniques when needed for other recipes.

I challenged myself to bake bread using the same great flour at different hydrations:

- at 85%, the dough was tricky but managed to get a good result

- at 75%, I felt being the most comfortable and the loaf turned as expected.

- at 65%, I've got a bit out of my preferred hydration range but I was totally impressed by the capabilities of the flour to relax.

I continued the challenge, at 55% hydration. This is way out of my comfort zone and it is far from being a preferred way of doing bread. 

Testing it was an interesting experience and these are my observations:

- after the initial mixing, the dough was that stiff that I could certainly break a window with it

- after the saltolyse, it became manageable and I've reached a great windowpane test

- relaxation time between steps is essential for such hydration

- at the shaping phase, although at 75% increased volume, the dough felt slightly under proofed in my hands so, I left it to grow to 100% after shaping. I used an aliquot jar to measure the increase. 

- shaping needs to be kept minimal to preserve the bubbles inside.

- dough didn't have a huge oven spring, although it was not surprising for such low hydration. However, even if it wasn't a real open crumb, I found it very fluffy and delicious.

- adding a lot of steam in the oven (ice cubes in my case) helped to avoid a hard crust, that on top of the improved oven spring. I knew this from previous bakes but such a thirsty dough I think it benefits more from extra steaming. The downside of extra steaming is that the flour on top tends to disappear. Stencilling works for me with only one ice cube in the Dutch Oven to preserve the pattern. For 2+ cubes, the flour absorbs the steamed water and only scoring can be used as design.

I do not know why I didn't try this cake before this year. I did however some angel food muffins in the past but this cake, in full format, I have not test it before.

Last week I baked a 75% hydration dough. Some time ago, I baked an 85% hydration dough. But for this bake, I tried 65%. This is very good hydration for easy dough handling. This makes it appropriate for any beginner to try it. As long as you read the signs the dough is giving to you, you'll know to bake at any hydration. Of course, this depends on the flour. A good quality flour will be very flexible at different levels of hydration. It will however have sweet spot hydration where it will perform at its best but this is for you to try. I find that the flour I used for these 3 bakes performs great between 65-75% hydration. 

I do not make a lot of bread at 65% hydration because I like better the 70-75% interval. This, of course, depends on the type of flour.

It is with pleasant surprise that I managed to bake a loaf at such low hydration and get a loaf with such an open crumb. For these loaves, I let the dough ferment to the extreme rise of 80% (maybe even +80%) and it was indeed a very risky job. But in the end, it performed exemplarily and I am very happy with the result.

 

When I first heard about the binary code, I remember being totally fascinated. To be able to transform any number in just a succession of 0 and 1, was for me absolutely incredible. 

Yesterday was the π day (03.14). I found out about this just late in the evening, but during the day, guess what I baked? Of course, a pie. Is this a sign for me from up there? Who knows...

I see myself baking much more bread than pies but I do enjoy making pies also, sometimes simple, sometimes more complex. What bread has to do with pies? Well, probably not a lot, except that I made a pie crust using discarded sourdough. I simply love to reuse discarded sourdough and now I use it in a pie crust.

What is more difficult with pie crusts is that they do not have to expand in the oven and they need to keep their shape. Sourdough has exactly the opposite property, to grow the dough. But if you use discarded sourdough, chances are little as the sourdough bacteria already consumed a lot of sugars from the flour.

In fact, I used my good old recipe of shortcrust pastry and transformed it, reusing the discarded sourdough. The 80g of milk I replaced with water (from the sourdough). Water is 50% in sourdough. I then had to deduct the same quantity from the flour. Butter quantity was kept the same but for the sourdough, I felt I could add a bit more. This is how I ended up with this recipe.

I had big help from my son mixing the ingredients by hand. While he was fascinated by the flour that stuck to his hands, I took advantage of his distraction to put together the ingredients in a ball.

I tested it in the oven and I was surprised that the shape was kept perfectly. The rise of the tart crust was minimal and I actually found it perfect. 

This crust looks solid but when you try to cut it with a spoon, it is breaking easily. It holds very well the filling and I will definitely use this recipe many times in the future.

How the tart has ended? It will come soon... but for now, let's look at the crust recipe.

It took me a lot of time to understand how much the quality of flour influences bread making. The protein content is an important factor and you can feel the difference only by testing it. Then comes hydration. Every flour is different at the same hydration level. This is why, when you are so motivated to replicate a recipe you saw in a video or read in a book, you put it into practice and you end up with a disappointing bread. Yes, indeed, you followed the exact quantity of ingredients, yes, you followed the steps very carefully, but your resulting bread is a kind of failure. 

Every 9th of March of my childhood, my mother was preparing a special dish: a kind of sweet soup with pasta made in the shape of 8. However, on other sides of the country, these 8s are not boiled but baked from a similar dough used for cozonac. But that is another recipe....

I sometimes start from an idea and launch myself in bread experiments.