This repository started out as my own personal baking journal dedicated to my attempts at baking bread and other baked goods at home. I used it initially to track my own progress and learn from my own experiences in tweaking and adjusting recipes. In time, that is, after a few entries, I saw that it contained a lot of information that I couldn't find in one single recipe on the web - information that I could have used in my beginner days to make fewer mistakes and be frustrated with fewer failures. Now it shows the promise of being a valuable resource for home bakers that are likewise tired of recipes that are not detailed enough. Here you will find, in great detail, my progress in baking, things that I have tried and the outcome in each case, the experienced causes and effects in the process, and hopefully enough information for you to adjust every recipe to suit your taste, schedule, scale, etc. I have tried to be as thorough as possible and at points might have sacrificed consiceness for completeness. That said, I might have also left out some important detail. If find any part of the journal not detailed or specific enough, you can write to me and I shall try to make amends in the next journal entry.
Speaking of journal entries, the structure of this repository and the journal is pretty straightforward. I am not a blogger - I'm a programmer as my profile is there to testify - so, for creating and keeping a journal, I have used the tools that are most familiar to me and take me minimal effort yet serve the purpose efficiently enough - a text editor (VS Code) and git. git was a late addition to my personal journal. Before that, the journal entries (each being a simple text/markdown file) were stored in a directory on my hard-drive and synched with my DropBox account. The easiest way to share the journal with the world would be to make the directory a git repo and push it to github. All I needed to do was create a README to explain everything about it - and here it is now!
Each journal entry, as said earlier, is a markdown file (so far with almost no formatting except for some bullet lists). The name of the file (as well as the contents) indicate the type of the baked good(s), date of baking, and an ordinal maybe. The knowledge that I have accumulated throughout my progress is always distilled in the last entry. So at any time, the last entry contains the most accurate information and in more detail and the most effective methods that I have discovered/learned so far. I create each entry a day before I want to start baking so it will serve as a detailed recipe for myself. This helps me see the whole process before I jump into it and make adjustments or plan improvements over the last bake. It also helps me know my schedule during the day. Each entry is comprised of a few steps and for each step I write the approximate time of the day at which I think the step should be taken (and how long it is estimated to take). I create each entry by first duplicating the last entry, modifying the times to fit them to my schedule and applying other changes to the steps that I wish to plan. The ideas for changes usually come to me after observing the results of the last bake. Throughout the baking process, as I perform each planned step, I note down the actual time at which the step was taken (if and how long it was delayed) and how long it actually took. I also note down my observations for each step so I apply changes to that step next time. To denote an observation, I use bullet points. I might use a H3 heading saying Observations or something similar before the bullet list. The next step will be denoted by a H2 heading.
Apart from the individual entries, I have also created an Excel file which I use for quickly calculating the amounts of various ingredients that go into a specific dough, based on a set parameters (hydration, seed, etc) in "baker's percent." The baker's percent is how the amount of each ingredient in a baking recipe is expressed by bakers. It is the preferred measurement as almost always the amount of dough that you want to produce varies while keeping the percentage of constituent ingredients help you produce consistent results. The measurement is essential the ratio of mass of the ingredient to the total flour content of the dough expressed in percents. Of the various ingredients the ratio of the amount of water in the final dough (or other pre-bake mixture) relative to its total flour content is know as "hydration."
One more thing to clarify is that I have used the words starter and levain to refer two different things that are the same in terms of their contents and conditions but which are used differently. I will try to explain.
By starter, I mean the mixture of flour and water that you keep (and feed) forever and use every time you want to bake sourdough products. I'll describe the process of creating the starter from scratch and maintaining it (AKA feeding) in other entries although most online recipes can be used to the same effect.
By levain, I mean the mixture that you create every time you want to start baking. This mixture contains a certain amount of your starter, water, and flour. The remaining part of the starter is discarded. After the levain rises to its full capacity, it is ready to be mixed into the final dough. All but a small portion of it will be mixed into the dough. The remaining part of the levain will serve as your starter batch for your next bake. Since the levain is seeded by your original starter, it contains the same organisms and inherits its characteristics. The new starter is essentially the same as the old one in terms of character.
As a final word, I try to proof-read most of the things that I write, but not as rigorously as if I'm publishing a book. Mistakes, a lot of them, might have crept there. If you wish to report mistakes in the text or if you think this journal could be improved in any other way. Your suggestions will be most useful and most welcome.
Happy baking!