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I finally found time to make Maggie Glezer's levain challah, the taste is amazing, rich, creamy and seems the longer it sits the sweeter it becomes. I didn't get the crumb I had tried to achieve but this is the first attempt. The dough was easy to work with and it worked great with my motherdough levain. It has a very unique taste which I think may be a result of the sourdough and the honey.

This has to be my favorite for a natural levain Challah. The yeasted version is PR's Challah in Crust & Crumb.

Ihave tried several of the bread recipes in the Fr. Dominic book series with poor results.

 My most recent attempt produced a very dry, dense, tough bread which tasted OK but was very disappointing. I ate theree slices the rest went in the waste can.

 I must be doing something wrong because I can't believe that anyone could win a state Fair Prize with this loaf as claimed in the book.

 Can anyone share some comments as to why I seem to get such poor results?

   Bob F
 

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4 Pound Onion Rye

I'm on the Board of a local charitable organization, and last night (Oct 17), we had our annual gala, which includes a silent auction. As I do every year, I donated a bread basket (which, I'm happy to report, fetched a very good price).

Getting there was quite a challenge, since the basket, which was Jewish bakery themed this year, included a challah, a deli rye, a dozen bagels, a dozen bialys, a dozen onion rolls, and a Russian coffee cake -- six breads, six different formulas, one KA stand mixer and two GE electric home ovens.

Here is some of my recent baking, two of the batches are from the SFBI book and both are really good like alla formulas from that book. The first batch pictured is the whole grain bread with sesame- ,sunflower- and flaxsseds and also some oats. This bread is a really tasty hearthy whole grain bread wich I think should be made a bit larger than the ones pictured, they are about 2-2½" across and weights 450g each as suggested in the book. I do however think that a 2# loaf of this bread baked for a bit longer in the oven whould be perfect for making hearthy sandwiches.

After a number of attempts and a good bit of reseach I think I am close to making a decent Pain de Beaucaire.  It's a challenge that's ranks right up there with the baguette.  This was my third attempt.  It's a really good loaf of bread and has very good flavor.  I will continue to experiment with this dough and the special technique required for cutting and shaping and also requires the use of bran flakes sandwiched between the two layers of dough, placed one on top of the other, in order to produce the open effect seen in the photo below, where the loaf appears to be s

This is my first try at a sandwich loaf. I have only made no-knead bread so far.

The recipe I'm using is White Bread - Variation 2 from BBA. I *meant* to make 1 loaf and so was halving the recipe in my mind, but realized I'd added the full amount of liquids accidently so I had more dough than I expected.

Hence, I tried 1 sandwich loaf, and then 3 long rolls, hoping those would be like a hoagie, and 1 round roll.

Most of us make more bread than we can eat.  And hey, why not when it's takes just as long to clean up after making 2 loaves as it does after making 4 loaves.  Anyway, for those of you who give away (or sell) your extras, these bags might be of interest.  I use them for our bakery packaging because they keep things crisp and allow me to package the loaves while they're still warm.  Plus, as you can see, they enable the customer to pick up the loaves and see them from top to bottom.   I print the labels on a single color laser printer (no smudging), which makes