Easter Baking Sale Is Almost Here 🌸
Spring always feels like a natural reset point in baking.
The days get longer, routines start to feel lighter, and a lot of people suddenly feel that urge to get back into the kitchen and build some momentum again.
Every year around Easter, I like to run a short promotion on my digital baking courses and resources for exactly that reason. It is meant to give you a structured push to improve your skills while motivation is high and energy is shifting with the season.
This year will be no different.
Over Easter weekend, I will be offering limited-time pricing on some of my most popular courses, including sourdough, rye, baguette, pizza, and panettone.
If you have been thinking about levelling up your bread baking or becoming more consistent at home, this is genuinely the best window of the season to start.
Early access readers always receive
- The best pricing
- First notice when the sale opens
- And occasionally a few extra bonuses
Hot Cross Buns — Micro Bakery Formula 🐣
With Easter coming up, this is the exact hot cross bun formula I recommend practising now if you are planning a bake for family, friends, or micro bakery sales.
These buns are enriched, lightly spiced, and designed to hold inclusions well while still giving you a soft, shreddable crumb and strong oven spring. The key is fermentation control and baking them before they are fully proofed, so you get that beautiful bloom.
If you are baking for production, I strongly suggest doing at least one test run this week. It removes stress and helps you dial in timing, shaping, and final proof.
👇Download the Hot Cross Bun Formula (Excel)👇
Hot cross buns Easter Production.xlsx
Next week, I will share a full step-by-step breakdown with mixing tips, proof cues, glaze options, and production scheduling.
Milling Grain at Home: What You Need to Know 🌾
This week, I got a great email from Linda, who just bought her first flour mill and is diving into fresh milled flour baking. That kind of excitement is honestly contagious. There is something really special about working with flour that was a whole grain just minutes earlier. The flavour is brighter, the aroma is incredible, and the dough behaves in its own unique way.
If you are just getting started with milling your own flour, here are a few simple tips that will help you get better results right away.
- Mill only what you need. Fresh flour is at its peak right after milling. I like to follow a “mill today, bake tomorrow” mindset.
- Expect faster fermentation. Freshly milled flour is more enzymatically active. Doughs will often rise more quickly, so keep a closer eye on bulk fermentation and proofing times.
- Hydration usually needs to go up. Whole-grain flour often absorbs more water than white flour, so the dough can feel tighter at first. That said, every grain and every milling style is different. Some weaker grains or softer wheats cannot handle very high hydration, so adjust the water gradually and let the dough guide you
- Start by blending. If you are new to fresh flour baking, try replacing 20–30% of the flour in your usual recipe before jumping straight to 100% whole grain. It is an easier learning curve.
- Use your senses. Fresh flour should smell sweet, nutty, and almost alive. If it smells flat or dusty, it has likely been sitting too long.
If you want a deeper dive into milling, grain choices, and how fresh flour changes fermentation and flavour, I put together a full guide that walks through everything step by step.
Baker Shoutout: Jalapeño Cheddar Love 📸
One of my favourite things about sharing recipes is seeing what you bake. This week, I wanted to give a shoutout to FlowersidebreadCO in Syracuse, who baked the jalapeño cheddar sourdough from my book and website. Beautiful crust, bold bake, and seriously good flavour.
If you’ve made a recipe from Bread, Etc. and loved it, leaving a quick ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review wherever you bought the book goes a very long way in helping it reach more bakers.
The same goes for the blog. If you’ve tried a recipe there, a rating or short comment helps the site grow and helps other bakers know what to bake next.
And of course, keep the photos coming. You can always just reply to this email and send me what you’ve made I genuinely love seeing them.
This Week in the Micro Bakery 🕺🍫 Chocolate Sourdough Lab
After a bit of a slower stretch (and honestly, a very needed break), we’re starting to fire things back up in the micro bakery. This week, I’ve been deep in chocolate-focused dough development, which has been a lot of fun creatively.
So far, I’ve mixed a chocolate sourdough loaded with coconut, cranberry, and dark chocolate, and I’m also working on a multigrain loaf with cocoa nibs plus a triple chocolate sourdough that is already looking very promising. These are still in the testing phase, but the early results are exciting.
I’ve also been invited to a chocolate-focused dinner sponsored by Cacao Barry, and they’ve sent along a range of products for me to experiment with. It’s always inspiring to work with new ingredients like this; it pushes recipe development in directions I might not normally explore.
Right now, most of this week has been about mixing, testing, and taking notes, but it feels good to be back in that creative rhythm. I’m hoping to have some finished bakes, formulas, and maybe even a new blog recipe to share with you next week.
|
|
|
Happy Baking,
MJD
|
Want to learn more from me? Check out my online video resources 👇
|
Unsubscribe · Preferences
