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8h •
🍞 Remember the Starter Experiment? Here’s What It Baked.
🍞 Last night I posted about my starter experiment water versus pineapple juice, the scale that died at midnight, and the volume measure I had to fall back on. You followed along all day. The coil folds, the toasting, the shaping, the pre-shape, the bench rest, the final shape, the bake. This is the loaf. 🌾 The Loaf Poppy seed sourdough from the Recipe Pantry, with one swap: I toasted black sesame seeds instead of poppy and folded them in at the first coil. The water-fed starter from the experiment is what raised it. The pineapple-fed jar got set aside. Same recipe. Different seed. Toasted, not raw. That's the whole change. 🔥 What I Got 🔹 Bloom that opened clean and proud where the score caught 🔹 A crumb that's open, glossy, evenly developed, with sesame distributed all the way through 🔹 Decorative scoring around the perimeter that held its shape because I kept those cuts shallow and the main score deep 🔹 A crust that's deep amber where it should be and lighter where the flour protected it 🔹 The kind of ear that makes you pause for a second before you slice it 🧪 The Lesson Worth Naming The high hydration sounds intimidating until you remember the wholemeal in this recipe is thirsty. It needs that water. Drop the hydration and you starve the dough. That's the whole reason the recipe is built the way it's built. And the toasted black sesame is the move I'd recommend to anyone who wants to take this loaf up a level. Two to three minutes in a dry skillet, shaking constantly, until you smell them. Then fold them in at the first coil like the recipe says. The toast wakes up the oil in the seed, which is where the flavor lives. Black sesame in particular has more oil than poppy, so the difference is dramatic. 📌 What Made This Bake Work 🔹 A clean, water-fed starter at peak (the right jar from yesterday's experiment) 🔹 Toasted seeds folded in at the first coil for crunch and flavor 🔹 3.5 coil folds, not 4, because at 75% hydration with wholemeal in the mix, four is too many
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2d •
🌾 Quick Update on the Poppy Seed Loaf Recipe
🌾 Small but important update on the poppy seed loaf in the Recipe Pantry. The original version called for T55 French wheat flour, and I'll be straight with you, that was a miss on my part. Most of us don't have T55 sitting on the shelf, and we shouldn't have to chase down specialty flour just to bake a poppy seed loaf at home. So I pulled it back and rewrote it. ✅ What Changed Both versions, yeasted and sourdough, now call for bread flour as the primary flour. If you've got AP on hand, that works too. If you happen to have T55, use it. The recipe works with any of the three. But the default is now whatever's already in your pantry. 🍞 Yeasted Version https://skoo.ly/yeasted-poppy-seed 🥖 Sourdough Version https://skoo.ly/sourdough-poppy-seed 📝 Quick Note on Flour Swaps 🔹 Bread flour gives you slightly more structure and a bit more chew. That's what I'd reach for first. 🔹 All-purpose flour gives you a softer, more tender crumb, which honestly suits a poppy seed loaf just as well. If you use AP, drop your water by about 5 to 10 grams because AP absorbs a touch less. 🔹 T55, if you have it, sits right in the middle around 11% protein. Use it the same way you'd use AP. That's it. No other changes to the recipe. Same hydration, same timing, same method. 👋 Your Turn If you've baked the old version, tell me how it went. If you're baking it this week, post your loaf in the thread. I want to see them. Perfection is not required. Progress is. Henry ⭐🔥
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4d •
🥖 Saturday Bake: Poppy Seed Loaf, Two Ways 🌾
We’re staying on the road we’ve been building together. Baguettes. Pretzel bread. The Foolproof Sourdough Loaf. And this Saturday, we’re going somewhere beautiful. ✨ Poppy seed bread. ✨ Two versions. ✨ One bake-along. 📌 Why two versions? Some of you are deep into sourdough and ready to push hydration. Some of you are still building your starter, or just want to bake bread this weekend without a multi-day commitment. This Saturday, both of you get to bake the same loaf alongside everyone else. 🥖 The Sourdough Version T55 French flour and a touch of wholemeal at 80% hydration. The poppy seeds get folded in during the first coil, which laminates them through the crumb instead of mixing them away. The result is what you see in the photo: ✨ Open ✨ Airy ✨ Flecked with seed ✨ That nutty crunch you only get when the seeds keep their integrity This one teaches you: 🌾 How to handle higher hydration 🌾 How to time bulk fermentation in a warmer kitchen 🌾 Why we use 3.5 sets of coils instead of 4 (Hint: 80% hydration with wholemeal doesn’t want a fourth set. It tightens the crumb.) 📖 Full sourdough recipe in the Recipe Pantry: https://pantry.bakinggreatbread.com/recipes/poppy-seed-sourdough-loaf 🍞 The Yeasted Version Same flavor. Same beautiful crumb. Simpler timeline. ✅ Same-day bake ✅ No starter required We’ll use the same poppy seed lamination technique with a commercial yeast dough, so you still get that gorgeous seeded crumb without the multi-day fermentation. If you’ve been wanting to bake along but felt like sourdough was a barrier, this is your week. 📌 I’ll have the yeasted version uploaded to the Recipe Pantry by end of day today. Watch for the post. 🛒 What you need to know now: 🌾 Pick up poppy seeds this weekMost grocery stores carry them in the spice aisle. 🌾 If you can find T55 flour, grab it.If not, a strong all-purpose around 11–12% protein works beautifully.(King Arthur AP is the closest match.)
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8m •
🛡️ Community Safety Note: Please Read 🧑✈️🚨
Hey friends, I want to take a moment to talk about safety in this community and how we talk to each other here. My goal is simple: keep Crust & Crumb Academy a safe place to learn, share, and grow without anyone feeling pressured, cornered, or pulled into something they didn't sign up for. Lately I've seen some behavior that raises red flags for me, and I want you to know what I'm looking at so you can recognize it too. 🔒 Our Clear Rule All coaching, support, and conversation should stay inside this community or on the official channels I clearly label and link. No member should be asking you to move the conversation to WhatsApp, Telegram, or any other private messaging app "because they're not active here." If someone you don't really know tries to do that, especially early in the conversation, treat it as a warning sign. 🚩 Specific Patterns to Watch For Here are some patterns I'm seeing that I consider suspicious and not okay here: A member starting out warm and friendly, responding to your baking story or post, and then dropping a line like: 🔹 "am not usually active on skool easier to chat on telegram @[long string of random characters] and i will be expecting your message" 🔹 Or: "this massive wow i will love us to continue this conversation am not usually active on skool easier to chat on telegram @[long string of random characters] and i will be expecting your message." Notice the broken grammar, the urgency ("I will be expecting your message"), and the immediate push to a private app. That's the pattern. Then there are the probing questions. The kind designed to keep the conversation going and personal: 🔹 "What part stood out to you more first, the look of the food or the branding?" 🔹 "What's been the best part of your day so far?" 🔹 "What do you usually like putting them on the most?" 🔹 "What part made it feel perfect to you?" These questions, on their own, are normal. People in this community ask warm, curious questions all the time. The red flag is when they're paired with repeated attempts to move you to a private app or a DM.
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4h •
🌾 Tomorrow's Bake. What Seed Are You Reaching For?
🌾 Tomorrow we're baking together. Poppy seed loaf, but you've got options on the seed of choice. What are you reaching for? 🗳️ Vote below, then tell us in the comments why that's your go-to. Toasted or raw? Soaker or dry? Folded in or rolled on top? Drop your method in the comments. Tomorrow we bake. Henry ⭐🔥
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