The hard choice: buttery or hearty?

I've been kind waffling (pun intended; read on) this week.

I'm still craving a bit of sweetness after the holidays—if you can believe it—but I'm also pushing more toward hearty breads with the heft to 'em. Porridge loaves, freshly milled loaves, whole grain loaves, the usual three musketeers of healthful baking.

The solution? Bake a little of each, a healthful long-fermented bread, and a quick sweet bread—plus a few waffles. A balance, if you will.

Here's what I had on this week's menu. Read on!

In this week's newsletter:

• Recipes: Pain de Mie, Buckwheat porridge pan loaf, banana bread, sourdough waffles
• Baking Help: Struggling with fermentation in a cold kitchen (aren't we all!)
• Sourdough Links: Golden age of American bakeries and the best pizza in the world—in NYC.

🍞 Pain de Mie

The kiddos are finally back to school (gosh, wasn't that a long break?), and my Pain de Mie was on the baking agenda this week.

It is such an excellent sandwich loaf for kid's lunches and makes the perfect PB&J!

GET PAIN DE MIE RECIPE

Or, go a little more hearty with...

🍞 Buckwheat Sandwich Bread

At the other end of the sandwich bread spectrum is this buckwheat porridge loaf that's incredibly hearty yet still light and airy.

This healthful recipe calls for 40% freshly milled hard white wheat and buckwheat cereal added to the dough. I love the deep flavor of this bread!

GET BUCKWHEAT RECIPE

🍞 Banana Bread

In sticking with the rectangular pan theme, my kids wanted chocolate cake. I wanted banana bread and had bananas. So I compromised and made my sourdough discard banana bread but threw in a full cup of chopped chocolate.

Win-win, I'd say 🙂

This is also a great loaf to use up any flour stragglers you've got in the pantry. Hard white wheat, einkorn, Khorasan, or spelt (yes, please) work well as a majority (or all) of the flour.

GET BANANA BREAD RECIPE

🧇 Sourdough Waffles

Almost every weekend, my waffle iron is heated, and I crank out a batch of these using my ​starter discard cache​. The reward-to-work ratio is so skewed toward reward that it's almost unfair.

GET WAFFLE RECIPE

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  (like the workshop I mentioned at the start of this newsletter!)
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💬 Member Discussion of the Week

There's nothing wrong with your approach, and I'd say most bakers do it this way: find a warm spot in the kitchen to keep your dough. And it's okay if temps are lower, too. It is essential to recognize that the dough will take longer to ferment when it's cooler. Conversely, it'll move faster when it's warmer.

The most important thing to help with this is to warm or cool the mixing water so your dough meets the final dough temperature outlined in the recipe (my recipes all have this listed). This way, you're starting bulk on the right foot and close to the timeline.

For instance, most of my recipes have a final dough temp of 78F. In the winter, this means warming the mixing water (I use the microwave) so it's warm enough that at the end of mixing, my dough will be 78°F (26°C). I usually have to warm the water to 80 or 85F. Then, I find a warm spot to keep the dough warm through bulk.

I talk about this quite a bit in my guide to dough temperatures!

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🛟 2 Ways I Can Help You Today

• Hello, cold temperatures (it snowed here yesterday!). For my tips for battling the cold and keeping fermentation strong, read my guide to baking in the winter.
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• I'm working hard on a few new recipes for the site and reaffirmed myself how important it is to ensure your loaves pass the poke test before baking. It is a simple technique but a useful one.

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📙 What I'm Reading and Watching

• The Golden Age of American Bakeries is Upon Us. Here's Why. (NY Times) Some very inspiring bakeries are listed here! But what's also great is that so many shop locally and support these new businesses. (LINK)
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• A Day Making The World's #1 Pizza in NYC (YouTube) I love Mangieri's approach to iterative improvement—he's done the same thing every day for a long time. And gosh, does his pizza look delicious (LINK)​

Happy baking!

Maurizio Leo

P.S. Many of you emailed me that my book has been out of stock for the past few weeks; it's finally back in stock (and at a great price)!