a post-vaccine life motto i’ve adopted: seek more opportunities to turn ordinary moments into special ones.

i buy all the flowers at the farmers market stand as it closes and cover every surface of my apartment with them. i lug bushels of apples home to make apple crisp in batches, dropping in on my friends on a random tuesday for a special delivery. i thrift a red dress that makes me feel like the 💃🏻 emoji, muster all the main-character-energy i can, and stroll around nyc in it without a so-called occasion.

i find myself delighting in the ability to infuse this everyday magic into the familiar, worn grooves of routine, in a way i have never felt before.

there is something that feels so fun, so dramatic, so extra about decorative sourdough.

unlike a cake, bread isn’t often thought of as pretty. maybe that’s why i’m even more appreciative of those who have made sourdough an art.

it’s decorative gourd season y’all. let’s make sourdough pumpkins!

notes

i’ve wanted to try this pumpkin shaping ever since i saw it on my instagram feed last year.

my variations:

• added a dash of turmeric for additional color in the dough, and subtle flavor
• saved and dried a butternut squash nub to top the final loaf for additional flourish
• included actual pumpkin puree during the autolyse for the full pumpkin effect

baker’s percentage & basic timetable

the percentages for water and flour only account for the final dough build, and do not include the levain formula build.

what do you really need to bake good sourdough bread?

baking in taipei, without my usual suite of tools, has really pushed me to reflect on this question.

i optimistically brought doug, my sourdough starter, with me, to taiwan.

i say optimistically because it turns out it’s pretty rare to have an oven in a typical taiwanese kitchen. i walked into my airbnb to find a countertop air fryer, a robust blender, and a cabinet where an oven might have been installed.

luckily, a lack of a proper oven was nothing a bit of resourcefulness and a lot of enthusiasm from my roommate couldn’t solve.

together, we managed to get access to a toaster oven for an afternoon, cobble together a suite of tools, and still get pretty incredible results. i’m sharing the process below if ever you find yourself in a similar situation.

may your days be filled with bountiful carbs, wherever you may find yourself!

equipment

• standard sized toaster oven. i used a panasonic toaster oven which had a maximum temperature of 230°C
• 8″ x 4″ enamelled steel pot with lid. we had this vardagen pot from ikea, but i think any 2 qt dutch oven would work.
• soup sized bowl. i used the bowl from this dinera set from ikea, the size of this cereal bowl
• thin paper or a tea towel. i used thin coffee filter like paper to line my bowl to create a “proofing basket”

necessary tools

• kitchen thermometer. i brought my thermopop from the u.s.
• kitchen scale. also brought from home, i have this one

optional tools

• lame. i brought my wiremonkeyshop one with me because it is small and i am extra.
• parchment paper. this would help, but i managed without. i used some coarse brown rice flour instead.
• bench scraper. or dough knife! i brought one from home, but you could use whatever large, sharp knife you have on hand.

notes

• toaster ovens have lower maximum temperatures than a regular oven. my bake times were much longer in order to bake it all the way through and achieve the crust color i wanted.
• toaster ovens are smaller than regular ovens. i’d recommend making smaller loaves. i used 450g of flour for two loaves.
• toaster ovens heat up much faster than regular ovens. i also used a non cast-iron, non-dutch oven. as a result, i reduced the pre-heat time.

i’ve always considered dill to be a second tier herb.

my mother cooked with a multitude of herbs, often, even growing chives and green onions in our backyard.

during peak harvest times, my mother would cook nothing but chives for weeks at a time — chive dumplings, chive bao zi, chive pockets. she fed it all to my brother and i until we became bloated from the fiber.

dill just never had a place in my pantry. never harmonized with the warming notes of our rotation of ginger, star anise, and chilis, never made it into our cart during our biweekly trips to shanghai supermarket.

in the past few months, however, i’ve been flirting a lot with dill. a dill-less salad now feels naked, like it’s missing an ingredient as crucial as the lettuce itself. i’ll never leave another PLS ungarnished.

above all, i’ve become hooked on the combination of cheese and dill after trying a roll from la farine.

with the feedback of over seven taste testers, i’ve developed a delicate, puffy, pizza-crust like roll that similarly centers cheddar and dill.

this roll has a crisp and thin crust, encrusted with thinly shredded cheddar and speckled with fresh dill. bready walls surround a small divet where the cheddar pools and bubbles. when you bite in, it’s like eating a sauceless, herby micro pizza.

no matter where you are in your relationship with dill, these rolls will make you fall in love all over again. bread and cheese tend to have that kind of effect.

notes

the secret to the perfect texture and bite is using olive oil instead of flour while shaping! it is of utmost importance that you use as little flour as possible during this step!

i encourage swapping the dill for chives or scallions for a different flavor profile. in fact, i’ve tested this with scallions and the result is just as wonderful (see the three rolls in the left corner of the cover photo).

though i haven’t tried it, gruyere could also be a nice cheese accompaniment to the dill.

if your cheddar is on the saltier side, i would skip the extra salt. the cheddar i used was pretty mild.

as always, my starter is 80% hydration. please adjust the dough formula to match your starter. all timing and schedules are suggestions. i developed this recipe in springtime san francisco kitchen at about 74°F.

baker’s percentage & sample timetable

the percentages for water and flour only account for the final dough build, and do not include the levain formula build.

i made this tiny sourdough reel for april fools’ inspired by how “small batch” has taken off this past year. it quickly became my most popular post! i’m blown away by the response, and wanted to share a longer video and process with all of you.

i’m including the full recipe below so you can make your very own tiny sourdough loaf ✨

notes

• although i provide a recipe, you can scale down any standard recipe. 60g of total flour will make two tiny sourdough loaves.
• i used my classic country brown recipe, but decreased the proportion of wheat flour to 10%, and used bread flour in place of all purpose.

materials

• mini proofing basket: for a round bannetone, i use a 2.5 oz condiment sauce cup and a cut pour-over coffee filter. you could likely use a small piece of scrap linen cloth too.
• mini dutch oven: mini le creuset cocotte

i ended last year hung up on three things.

the first: a boy (isn’t it always?). quarantine fact: break ups are much, much harder during a global pandemic when there is not much else to do except sit on a rollercoaster ride of uncomfortable feelings and thought patterns.

the second: brooklyn. seeking proximity to family and an escape from the impending winter, i left new york. quarantine fact: there’s nothing like cinematic nostalgia to leave you on the ground curled up in a blanket burrito, sobbing. watching dash & lily destroyed me.

last, but certainly not least: my beloved arizmendi cheese rolls. back in august, i had scoured the internet for the recipe. i had racked my brain for the taste profile of the cheese. quarantine fact: i had tasted cheesy, bready greatness and i could not go back.

luckily, when i moved last month i discovered cheeseboard, arizmendi’s sister bakery. needless to say, i have since consumed many a cheese roll. luckily, this also had the happy side effect of mitigating the first two aforementioned hang ups. a small sacrifice in the name of research.

after much neighborly taste testing, i’m confident this formula produces a remarkable likeness to the original cheese roll, with improvements. i feel i’m doing a similar type of analysis and reconstruction for the other parts of my life. basking in the sunny, warm winter days. reconnecting with old friends over focaccia. trekking through miles of redwood forest.

i’m not saying these cheese rolls have magically cured my afflictions, though i notice progress everyday.

all i’m saying is this. if even one person is spared from the sadness that is a life without cheese rolls, then my work here will have been worth it.

notes

as always, please adjust the formula based on the hydration of your starter, and adjust the timing of the bulk rise based on the temperature of your kitchen. please treat all times listed below as a sample schedule. this recipe was developed during the winter, in a 60 degree kitchen at 50% humidity.

you might be tempted to use a different type of cheese. i strongly recommend you resist this urge. asiago cheese just hits different. i repeat. these rolls will not have the intended flavor without asiago.

as per my other experiences baking with cheese, parchment paper is a must! melty cheese can easily crust over.

this recipe preserves all of the loveability of these iconic rolls while also providing a softer bite, lighter texture, and smaller size. i’m especially excited about this recipe, and i hope you all will be too.

baker’s percentage & sample timetable

the percentages for water and flour only account for the final dough build, and do not include the levain formula build.

we could all use a little more comfort in our lives right now, even in the blistering heat of summer. for me, no other food combination spells out comfort more than cheese and carbs.

this loaf deliciously combines the best of both worlds. the savory creaminess from the melted cheese comes in sporadic pockets, with the subtle spiciness from the black pepper running throughout.

this cheese and black pepper combo has easily become one of my favorites.

notes

as always, please adjust the formula based on the hydration of your starter, and adjust the timing of the bulk rise based on the temperature of your kitchen. this recipe was developed during the summer, in a 80 degree kitchen. please add an hour during the shoulder months, and two hours in winter months.

i used mccormick’s ground black pepper to develop this recipe, which i found to be fairly weak in flavor. i liked the flavor better at 2.5%, which for a 400 g flour loaf was 10 g of black pepper. i did not try this with freshly cracked black pepper. if you do bake this with freshly cracked black pepper which usually carries a stronger flavor, please be sure to reduce the amount.

cubing a block of cheese yourself is the secret to melty cheese pockets! shredded cheese will not yield the same effect. i like to use sharp, white cheddar cheese, but i bet a similar type of cheese would work just as well.

parchment paper is important here because the cheese will melt and get stuck to your dutch oven! that being said, the parchment paper might also get stuck to the loaf due to melted cheese. peel and scrape it off before enjoying.

baker’s percentage & basic timetable

the percentages for water and flour only account for the final dough build, and do not include the levain formula build.

dumpling series

this is the first part of my three part series on sourdough discard dumplings!

• in this part, i explain my formula and method for making dumpling wrappers using sourdough discard.
• in the second part, i focus on shandong style dumpling wrapping technique (with a vegan filling recipe!), and how i like to pay fry them.
• the third part describes my formula and method for adding a pretty, extra crispy skirt on your pan fried dumplings with a sourdough discard slurry.

read them all together to re-create my sourdough dumplings, or mix and match with different techniques or store-bought items.

my story

i learned how to make dumplings from generations of women in my family passing down this one tradition.

from a young age my mother made it clear to me that the way we made dumplings was not like other chinese families. first, she said, we made our own wrappers. this skill, she urged, was not one to be overlooked.

thus, my childhood kitchen table became my training ground. me struggling to roll out dumpling wrappers while my palms hurt, mom generously wrapping plump morsels, dad manning the boiling station, brother too young to contribute beyond eating (eventually stepping up into assistant wrapper).

there are many different ways to make “chinese” dumplings. each region has its preferences for wrapping, pleating, filling, and cooking methods.

shandong 山东 style dumplings are known for thicker, chewier dumpling wrappers. they are fat with filling, and don’t care to impress with braided pleating. oftentimes my mother squeezes them shut in a dual cupping pinching motion i have yet to master.

though incorporating sourdough discard into the dumpling dough is far from traditional, it does create a flavor that’s very compatible with the black vinegar sauce and fillings i usually use (cabbage or carrots).

more importantly, i wanted to develop this recipe to bring together two of my most important worlds. i wanted to share this piece of my story with all of you, and share it in an incredibly delicious way.

notes

although the formula is new, this is the process my family has always followed for homemade dumpling wrappers. the rolling method is tricky and will take practice to get used to. i can’t promise that it’s foolproof, but i can promise to try my best in communicating what the women in my family have taught me.

as always, please adjust the water and flour amounts based on the hydration of your starter.

if you have leftover dough, you can use it to make a scallion pancake.

baker’s percentage & basic timetable

the percentages for water and flour only account for the final dough build, and do not include the levain formula build.

i wish i could say that perusing the olive and cheese selection at the park slope food coop is what inspired me to make this loaf, but alas. i must confess i made this loaf because i once loved a man who really, really loved olives.

he didn’t live in new york (or even in this country), and for some reason i got it in my head that if only he tried a piece of this bread, he would consider moving brooklyn. yes, the loaf was truly that tasty.

a year has gone and passed since then. my hypothesis was never tested, as our relationship was too short-lived for him to try this bread.

luckily, this recipe lives on.

salty, tangy, always leaving you wanting more. feed this to all the lovers and olive lovers in your life. please do let me know if it has the intended effect 😉

notes

be sure to buy pre-pitted olives! i most certainly, definitely am not including this because i learned this the hard way heh (but seriously, de-pitting them was a n00b lesson you will now not have to repeat).

for lamination videos, check out my guava cream cheese post or @fullproofbaking.

my regular batch of caveats: please be wary of starter hydration and seasonal timing adjustments (for me it means about +1 hr in the summer, and about -1 hr in the winter).

baker’s percentage & basic timetable

the percentages for water and flour only account for the final dough build, and do not include the levain formula build.

i don’t talk about ken forkish enough. i really should because he changed my life.

in 2016, my coworker, artur, brought in a loaf of bread (so crusty, so good) and evangelized a book he used to make it, flour water salt yeast (fwsy, for short). artur kept bringing in bread, each loaf better and more complex than the one before. and i, carb loving individual that i am, kept on eating it, each bite more curious than before.

i picked up a copy later that month and started baking alongside arty.

ken became my first teacher of sourdough, and fwsy became my bible. his story of transitioning from disillusioned banker to james beard celebrated bakery and pizzeria owner resonated with a younger version of me, a frustrated software engineer looking for, if not meaning and fulfillment, at least something where she didn’t have to stare at a screen for hours.

i have read the entire book (and have baked 90% of it) from cover to cover. my copy, you could say, is well loved. the entire middle chunk can be pulled out. there is dried, crusted sourdough starter on the guide to making your own levain pages. you can’t miss the bits of crusted up dough on the recipes i really struggled with (all i can say is, ken, you must have a frigid portland kitchen).

this recipe is inspired by one of my favorite loaves in the book, his country brown sourdough. i’ve incorporated newer techniques that work better for me in wetter doughs, and paired it with the familiar flavor of his country brown. mildly tangy, soft, accessible, and so very versatile.

notes

as always, please adjust the formula based on the hydration of your starter, and adjust the timing of the bulk rise based on the temperature of your kitchen (1 hr shorter during summer, 1 hr longer during winter).

i mentioned that this is a pretty slack, wet dough due to the high hydration and lower protein content of the flours. to introduce more strength, i extend the autolyse to 1 hr (as opposed to 30 min), use the rubaud and slap & fold methods for mixing, and load up on coil folds.

please refer to the above linked videos for the techniques i mention in my recipe, as i do not describe them further.

feel free to experiment with any whole wheat variety. i’ve baked this with both king arthur whole wheat, and locally grown red fife!

the link to ken’s book is an amazon affiliate link. this means if you purchase it from this page, i’ll make money from it. that doesn’t affect my opinion of this book at all. know that i only recommend products and resources that have helped me immensely on my personal sourdough journey and that i consider to be a worthwhile investment.

baker’s percentage & basic timetable

the percentages for water and flour only account for the final dough build, and do not include the levain formula build.

my earliest meaningful memory of pizza is of waiting in line with my mother at papa murphy’s take and bake, bogo coupon in hand, ordering two supreme pizzas. then, there was the costco food stand. our family of 4 would pile into the car, do our shopping, walk out with the largest supreme pizza available, and eat the leftovers over the next few days.

if there’s one thing my mother believed in, it was value. getting anything short of whatever gave you the most amount of toppings was unthinkable. and thus, i was raised on a string of supreme pizzas.

then, the singular experience at 17 that redefined pizza for me: a classic margherita from punch pizza.

for one, it was a topping-less pizza. i remember it coming out, the bare cheese staring back at me, bits of tomato sauce peeking through, naked, like it forgot to put its clothes on.

second, we each got our own individual pizza, as if one entire pizza was an acceptable serving size my parents conveniently forgot to mention to me, a young susceptible mind and a very hungry almost adult.

but most importantly, it was nothing like i had tasted before. the thin base, the wood fired flavor, the satisfying chew of the crust. it was hard for me to believe that we lived in a world where the pizza i knew and loved could coexist with this new pizza i didn’t know and quickly became infatuated with.

i’ve had way more pizza memories than i’d like to admit over this past decade of pizza discovery and re-discovery. pizza seems to hold the constant of re-inventing itself for me just as i keep re-inventing myself.

my newest favorite way to eat pizza is to make a big batch of dough, invite a small group of friends over, and make a couple of pizzas together while we catch up. it’s as collaborative as it is creative, as easy as it is fast, as humble as it is impressive.

i hope these will soon become your favorite pizza memories too.

notes

i have a stiff starter that’s 80% hydration. please adjust amount of water in final dough to account for your starter’s hydration.

we might not get to gather in groups again for a while, but luckily this dough keeps well for a few days in the fridge. in fact, this dough needs a long cold proof. you’ll find it becomes easier to work with and the flavors become more complex the longer it’s been in the fridge. it bakes up quick enough to make for a reasonably achievable weekday work from home lunch.

pizza like this does its best baking at very high temps. unfortunately most home ovens don’t go as high as commercial ones. just crank it to as high as it will go, and make sure your oven is clean. i may or may not have set off my smoke detector at least 5 times over the course of 3 bakes.

this recipe makes enough dough for 3 – 12″ skillet-sized pizzas or 4 – 9″ skill-sized pizzas. scale up or down as needed. i can pretty easily eat an entire one of these.

this recipe is just for the crust. some toppings inspiration:

• du’s: mozz, caramelized onions, roasted garlic, spinach. to prevent burnt ends, put the caramelized onions on post bake or hide beneath spinach. drizzle with honey & chili flakes right before serving.
• margherita: tomato sauce & mozz. put basil on right before serving.
• tie dye: ricotta & mozz, tomato sauce & pesto
• shakshuka: tomato sauce, egg, mozz, feta. top with pepper and arugula post bake

baker’s percentage & basic timetable

the percentages for water and flour only account for the final dough build, and do not include the levain formula build.

if you’re like me and love baking bread just as much as you love eating bread, you might occasionally have the unique, and frankly excellent, problem of sometimes being in possession of perhaps, too much bread (writing this pains me because i’d like to defend that there is no such thing as too much bread, particularly sourdough bread).

over the past few years, in addition to baking slightly smaller loaves and finding more people to share my freshly baked bread with, i’ve developed a few strategies to maximize my bread consumption and to salvage aging (or failed heh) loaves — what else is a carb-loving eco-conscious nerd to do?

1. pre-slice & freeze half

i’ve found that the shelf life of homemade sourdough is around 3 days, though the crust begins to lose its characteristic crunch much sooner than that.

let this be a game changer: you can freeze your bread, and re-toast it to revive the same texture.

i like to pre-slice the portion of the loaf i plan to freeze into toastable sizes, and then store them in a freezer bag. when i’m ready to eat, i just pull out slices one by one and pop them in the toaster on a medium-high setting. when they pop out, they’re crispy on the edges and soft in the center.

you’re welcome.

2. give your bread a second life

sometimes my sourdough gets stale sooner than i’d like. in these cases i give it a second act: savory bread pudding, french toast using day-old guava cream cheese sourdough, or my current favorite — sourdough croutons. like discard focaccia, the recipe is simple while the possibilities for flavor combos are limitless.

this recipe is vaguer than my other ones. just like okonomiyaki is a way to eat a bunch of delicious sauces, i feel like croutons are simply a vehicle to get flavor profiles you want on a very crisp vehicle.

sub olive oil for melted butter for a richer flavor. add whatever flavorings you want. i like a generous amount of italian seasoning and garlic powder. sometimes a bit of parmesan cheese if i’m feeling fancy.

cut toss bake enjoy repeat. i hope this encourages you to love your day-old bread just as much as you love your fresh-out-of-the-oven crackling loaf!

focaccia is like sourdough’s super chill, completely unfussy sister that pulls everything off without even trying. you know the type — the ones that throw their hair up in a bun without having to check their reflection, throw on a jacket that’s just laying about, and still manages to bounce out the door looking effortlessly cool.

some days i want making bread to feel like this too, and on those days i make focaccia. throw everything together, go to sleep, and in the morning, poof, without having to really even think, out comes this miraculously delicious, beautiful thing.

think it’s too good to be true? let’s make it even better. this sourdough focaccia recipe is leavened with sourdough starter discard.

you’re welcome 🙂

notes

i have a stiff starter that’s 80% hydration. please adjust amount of water in final dough to account for your starter’s hydration.

you might realize you like a different thickness of focaccia than the one described here. a 10×10 inch brownie-ish or cake pan for this quantity of dough will give you a focaccia that just fills the crevices. for a thicker focaccia, use a smaller pan or scale up your dough. i use a pan where the dough doesn’t quite reach the edges and get a thinner focaccia i personally really enjoy. tldr; use what you got!

if you find your focaccia is sticking to the pan or worry it might, a few readers have recommended using parchment paper in addition to oil.

though this recipe tastes great on its own, it is also very adaptable to include whatever toppings you wish and enjoy on focaccia. a few suggestions:

• roasted garlic: roast 1-2 heads of garlic. dimple in the garlic before adding salt and additional olive oil.
• zataar: after dimpling and after drizzling olive oil and salt, sprinkle a handful of zataar. drizzle another bit of olive oil on top.
• veggies: slice a couple handfuls of raw grape or cherry tomatoes in half, and some red onion and peppers into slivers. dimple in the veggies before adding salt and additional olive oil.
• grapes: dimple in a couple handfuls of grapes before adding salt and additional olive oil.
• rosemary: top with a few sprigs of rosemary at the end.

baker’s percentage & basic timetable

the percentages for water and flour only account for the final dough build, and do not include the levain formula build.

*you can sub einkorn flour with whole wheat, or all purpose flour

🧧 happy lunar new year!!! 🧧

this past friday marked the beginning of the two week holiday period known as spring festival 春节, a huge celebration in mainland china to usher in the new year. festivities often include extravagant amounts of delicious food, a lot of quality family time, and even more echos of wishing each other health, happiness, and prosperity.

as a kid, my family used to gather with a few other chinese families in the greater twin cities area for a celebratory potluck dinner, where each family would bring their specialty dish, taking pride in their regional cuisine. raised in northern china where the food is more wheat based (rather than rice), my mom was known for her dumplings and flatbreads.

the apple don’t fall far from the tree i guess.

this recipe is a way to share a piece of my mother’s cooking and pride in our region. i adapted her yeasted scallion pancake 发面葱油饼 (fa mian cong you bing) recipe to use sourdough discard, and fell in love with the result. soft & fluffy on the inside with a perfectly umami laden & crispy exterior, this is a perfect way to get every last bit of leavening power from your sourdough starter discard.

notes

i went through a lot of trial and error with this recipe.

• some variations that were successful: i’ve used discard both at room temp and straight out of the fridge. the water temperature listed in the recipe below is for discard straight out of the fridge. for room temp you can use water 90-95°F.
• some that were less successful: this dough at a lower hydration doesn’t achieve the lightness we want, and the dough at a higher hydration becomes hard to roll out. i’d recommend sticking to 54-56%
• i didn’t test an overnight refrigerated proof at all, but that could be interesting to experiment with.

importantly, i use discard from a stiff levain. please tweak flour and water proportions to accommodate for your levain’s hydration. as an example calculation:

• my starter is 80% hydration with a 5:4:1 ratio of flour to water to starter. this means that 50g of starter is composed of about 28g flour and 22g water (or if you’re real nerdy like me, 50g = x + 0.8x, solve for x)
• if your starter is 100% hydration (1:1:1 ratio), that means that 50g of starter is composed of 25g of flour and 25g of water. so to match the recipe, add 3g more flour and 3g less water. ta-da!

i also wrote a blog post about this math with a few helpful calculator tools!

lastly, if you enjoyed this, i’d so appreciate you taking a second to rate and leave a comment all the way at the bottom. i love hearing feedback and it brings me so much joy to know you’re making this recipe!

baker’s percentage & basic timetable

the percentages for water and flour only account for the final dough build, and do not include the levain formula build.

we are officially in the thicket of winter, which for most people means a miserable period of darkness and coldness and wetness and <insert your other gloomy adjectives of choice>.

but from misery breeds opportunity i say! an opportunity to indulge and find comfort in all the warm, lovely carbohydrates. an opportunity to crank your oven up to the highest setting and to hover by it as the aromas and heat waft out of the kitchen.

that doesn’t so bad right?

this recipe for seeded sourdough is perfect for those who, like me, also reach for heartier, darker whole grains during the winter. packed with flavor and seeds, serve this loaf warm with a thick slab of butter or with your favorite instant pot stews.

notes

at first glance, the hydration might seem alarmingly high (85%), but the wheat flour absorbs it all and yields an extensible, pliable dough that isn’t sticky or hard to work with. i promise.

i’ve added a hefty portion of rye in addition to the whole wheat to add even more depth of flavor and to balance out water absorption a bit. when i think of my favorite seeded loaves (mostly dutch and german breads), rye is always there.

lastly, the seeds i’m using in the recipe are merely suggestions — i’ve opted for pumpkin, sunflower, hemp, and fennel seeds (the fennel in particular adds a beautiful flavor and i’d highly recommend if you are a fennel fan), but feel free to use whatever fits your fancy. i would recommend 40g of larger seeds and 20g of smaller seeds.

baker’s percentage & basic timetable

the percentages for water and flour only account for the final dough build, and do not include the levain formula build.

flour bakery in cambridge, ma was the first bakery i truly fell in love with. in college, i’d walk the 15 minutes from my dorm on tuesday late afternoons to order my usual breakfast sandwich and a pot of tea, sitting by window doing homework until whoever was closing that day had to politely ask me to leave (also can we agree that breakfast sandwiches are not just reserved for breakfast, and deserve to be eaten at any time of day?).

as an asian american woman who also grew up in flyover states and also went to university in boston, i consider joanne chang to be one of the greats, one of my life heroes.

i’ve adapted her original sticky bun recipe to include ripe sourdough starter rather than yeast. sourdough and brioche sweet bread might seem counter intuitive, but the sourdough doesn’t negatively affect the flavor at all.

whenever i eat these i first get hit by the melt-in-your-mouth gooey goodness, and then by a huge wave of nostalgia. i’m not sure which feeling i enjoy more, and i hope these do the same for you.

notes

like many brioche doughs, this is a fairly wet dough. don’t panic if it seems unwieldy! the dough strengthens with folds and refrigeration.

you could swap the heavy cream in the goo for whole milk, though you will end up with a much thinner (albeit still tasty) goo.

sticky buns are best eaten warm, within 4 hours of baking. share with friends and after a bite, you’ll be their favorite friend.

you can store them in an airtight container for up to 1 day and reheat with microwave or oven. i’ve also stashed them in the freezer for longer term storage. i swear they taste just as good straight out of the freezer, microwaved for a couple of minutes.

baker’s percentage & basic timetable

baker’s percentages are percent weight relative to total flour, and refer to the dough only (excludes goo topping)

my only childhood bagel experiences were the day old, half priced bruegger’s asiago bagels my friends and i would sneak out of statistics class to buy at our high school cafeteria. when i moved to nyc, i entered the bagel mecca itself, and oh i had much. to. learn.

i learned not to toast the good ones (the sacrilege!).

i learned that pumpernickel had no association with leprechauns (ok but doesn’t it conjure up the image?).

i learned that the bagel could, and should, be used as a vehicle to consume many other delicious things, like peanut butter, or smoked salmon, or scallion cream cheese (but absolutely no vegetables allowed except for red onions, nuh uh).

this sourdough is an homage to nyc, my home for the last 4 years. it’s encrusted with the everything seasoning we know and love, with a higher percentage of rye and spelt for that familiar tang.

for maximal stickiness, cover the sticky dough with the seasoning post-shape and pre-flour. if you find the seasoning falling off, you can try wetting it a little bit before covering the dough with seasoning by spraying a bit of water.

peanut butter and jelly. apples and cheddar. chocolate milk shakes and fries. these are the three iconic sweet savory duos from my american childhood.

as i’ve had the opportunity to travel and try new foods in the past 10 years, i’ve discovered a variety of other iconic sweet savory duos: tahini and date spread in israel, matcha and red bean in asia, guava and cream cheese in latin america — the inspiration behind this lovely loaf.

guava is a small tropical fruit, with a light green waxy exterior and a soft, seeded, pink interior, with a texture similar to a soft pear. guava paste tastes kinda like strawberry jam with a hint of pear, and is usually sold in rectangular brick form. thankfully, this makes it way easier to cube.

the savory from the cream cheese beautifully counteracts the sweetness from the guava, all of which is encompassed in a soft, fluffy bread.

best enjoyed on its own as a dessert, snack, or breakfast. be prepared to audibly react to the deliciousness. don’t sleep on this pro-tip: makes for an amazing base for french toast after a couple of days.

notes

i use king arthur bread flour, trader joe’s all purpose, bob’s red mill rye, and farmer ground flour einkorn. i got guava paste from food bazaar, but it’s also available on amazon.

please adjust your levain and bulk times for when your kitchen is colder or warmer, about 1 hour more during the winter and 1 hour less during the summer.

i’ve included a video of the lamination technique, using @fullproofbaking’s lamination method.

baker’s percentage & basic timetable

the percentages for water and flour only account for the final dough build, and do not include the levain formula build.

*can sub einkorn for whole wheat

venturing into the unknown world of mix-ins and non-flour/water/salt ingredients has always intimidated me. i get nervous about the crumb closing, or the additional ingredients weighing the dough down, or the dough becoming way too sticky.

i didn’t approach experimentation as a way to be creative, as a way to keep developing my craft, a way to learn more about sourdough. i was more nervous about messing up a few times.

i let these thoughts hold me back from trying a bunch of new, fun things — until this year 🙂

the inspiration behind this loaf comes from a baker i really admire in this regard, @fullproofbaking. her beautifully curated, colorful instagram feed showcases many, many unique flavor combinations, the kinds that i’m always dying to try, but scared to.

when i saw this loaf on her feed, it gave me the final push to adapt and bake this yellow, punchy turmeric onion sourdough. this bread is soft, fragrant, and carries so much flavor on its own. i’d recommend eating it plain, the same day it’s baked, untoasted.

here’s to doing all the things that scare us — especially (i’d like to think) if the thing that scares us involves baking lovely, delicious things into bread.

notes

don’t skip the lamination step — it builds strength and yields a wonderful open crumb and soft, light texture. for lamination pointers, check out the video in my guava cream cheese recipe.

you could use oil instead of butter to sautee the onions, but i’m partial to butter (self explanatory).

as always, tweak levain and bulk times for when your kitchen is colder or warmer. for me this means closer to 9 hours in the winter, and 7 hours in the summer.

baker’s percentage & basic timetable

the percentages for water and flour only account for the final dough build, and do not include the levain formula build.

2019 has been the year of einkorn. i am nothing short of obsessed.

this is how serious it is: i haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since trying a 100% einkorn sample loaf from bread alone at last year’s growNYC home baker’s meetup in march 2018. i even splurged on a 2 lb bag of nice, local flour milled from farmer ground flour. $7 is not chump change when it comes to a small bag of flour.

einkorn is an “ancient grain”, in the same family as emmer and spelt. it’s known as the oldest variety of wheat, and also for its friendliness to folks with gluten sensitivities. i love it for its nutty taste (which comes through very strongly in higher percentages), and the softness it gives my bread.

speaking of which, this bread is SO soft — and i would really recommend eating it at least once un-toasted.

i love eating a slice of this with an egg for breakfast, dipped in a butternut squash soup, or honestly just with a pat of butter. it eats well plain, but also holds up well to toppings. i bet it would be amazing with some hummus and vegetables.

i have also cut this bread into cubes, let it dry out over a couple days, and made a savory kale, mushroom, parmesan bread pudding.

this recipe assumes you’re familiar with some basic processes already, and already have your own starter. i plan to write about both of these things in future posts, but haven’t gotten there quite yet. thanks for your patience!

bakers percentage & recommended schedule

the percentages for water and flour only account for the final dough build, and do not include the levain formula build.

a note on seasonal adjustments: tweak levain and bulk times for when your kitchen is colder or warmer. for example, in the winter, i increase levain to 29%, bulk to 8/8.5 hrs, and in the summer, i decrease levain back to 25% and bulk for shorter — maybe 7 hrs. this will totally change depending on how your kitchen carries heat.