Well, technically I have made bread before, but these are the first loaves I have made where I had a clue what was happening.

I followed Hamelman's recipe (Bread:Pg 113) pretty strictly with the exception of baking. I started with a cold oven instead of preheating and I didn't use any steam or water in the oven.

The recipe is a basic white bread made with a Biga that I prepared the night before. This was also my first time using my new mixer, a Bosch Compact Kitchen Machine (450W version).

I have not tasted the loaves or cut them open yet as they are still cooling, but I am very pleased with the results thus far.

Both loaves were baked in loaf pans of slightly different sizes. The loaf on the left was made in a loaf pan that was a bit slimmer and longer than the loaf on the right.

Also the loaf on the left was baked inside a small turkey roaster for the first 30 minutes where the loaf on the right was baked straight on the rack inside the loaf pan. Some of the extra lift of the left loaf was due to the narrower loaf pan but I do think baking it inside the roaster helped the lift a bit.

I haven't cut them open yet so I don't have any pictures of the crumb. I will try and post them later.

In addition to Jeffrey Hamelman's book, Bread, this site has been of great help to me. Hope you enjoy the pics.

John

With all the recent discussion on making baguettes, I thought some of you might be interested in a recent posting about baguettes on my brand-spankin'-new bread blog:

 http://www.breadcetera.com/

 - SteveB

I am not only new to baking, I have never "blogged" before, so maybe someone has asked this before but I can't find the answer. I am so excited to have success using the Mother Earth News Magazine artisan bread recipe where you stir yeast water flour & salt, let it rise overnite, then put it in a dutch oven heated in a 475 degree oven!!!! I have never been able to make good bread until now. then I ordered "sourdough starter" for 5$ and figured out too late I bought a couple of Tbl. flour for 5$. it got moldy & I had to throw it out, and looking for some help I have come across this very helpful and nurturing website. I have copied the recipe for wild yeast sourdough starter and I'm wondering why I can't use it in the recipe instead of yeast in my dutch oven? also, I read someone's comment that they formed their loaf, then sprayed it once each minute for 5 minutes & put a pan of water in the oven... the dutch oven keeps the bread moist & steamy so they could skip that. The recipe is on Mother Earth news website, I think it's from the New York Times a couple of years ago. Can I adapt that recipe?

I thought I would try to make this bread from "Local Breads".  I wasn't sure how it would turn out since this is the first time I had tried making this bread.  When I was shaping the crown it picked up to much flour from the counter and the ends of the rope didn't want to seal together.  I just twisted them around each other and it didn't come apart.  The bread looked a little light to me so I left it in an extra 10 minutes.  I'm going to cut it later tonight and see how it tastes.

Auvergne Crown 

A few years ago when I was dreaming about baking good bread I stumbled across Mike Avery and his Sourdough Home web site. http://www.sourdoughhome.com/index.html . For me it was a great find and Mike was very kind with me as I stumbled through the beginnings of learning to bake simple breads. After I was on my way and had been using some of his key recipes with success, I decided to purchase his self published recipe book. I figured he had earned my support after spending so much time holding my hand in the early days, and it's well done, has great pictures, easy directions and is a very good value (cheap). One of the extras Mike includes is his never ending updates. So every now and then he sends me a new recipe or update to one of the hand outs. He also supports the attendees of his classes with this same free update service.

Anyone who has been reading here at TFL knows what an asset Mike is for aspiring bakers. I really don't know anyone who is more well read and takes the time to work with the community and our users like he does. I hope he writes a hard cover book one of these days. He is very authoritative and has a clear writing style. Honest--I'm not the fan club president but I do appreciate all he does for us. It takes time to do this stuff.

A couple days ago I received a recipe for Focaccia from Mike that looked interesting and I tried it today. One thing I like about this recipe is that it's a 1 day project and still it tastes wonderful. It starts with a Sponge and is about 25% WW. I thought I would try making it savory so I added 1/4t of French Thyme and powdered Rosemary in the dough mix. As you can see in the photo I also baked a couple sprigs of fresh rosemary in the top.

This is the easiest and best Focaccia I have made. Thanks Mike, for the inspiration and formula. 

Focaccia

Count me in. It will probably be toward the end of the week however, Maybe Wednesday or Thursday at the latest for me. I want to take another shot at Pain de Campagne tomorrow.

I have both durum and semolina flour and and notice the recipe says you can use either. I'll use whichever you don't want to try.

Anybody else wany in on this experiment? I know you'd be welcome.

Mary 

Hi there, I'm a little frustrated. My rolls went out small, hard and dense again. Made from pr basic sourdough bread the boule (from the same batch of dough) is great, has good oven spring and a light interior. The rolls are dense as my rolls are always. Unfortunately I happen to like rolls better than bread and it really bothers me I never get them right. What do I have to take care of? Any help on what distinguishes roll making and proofing from bread making would make me extremly happy!!!

Thanks in advance!

I'm having a challenge with getting nice dark crusts on the last few loaves I've made, from Dan Leader's Local Breads (French Country Boule; multigrain Pain au Levain).  My two oven thermometers are giving me about even readings, I've been steaming as directed (hot water, not ice cubes, as our freezer was out of commission), and after the designated bake time the internal temp of the loaves does come up to 205-210...plenty.  The internal crumb is lovely, once cooled.  I have continued to bake the loves past the done stage (10 min or so) without any appreciable change in color.

The only things I've done differently are moved the oven rack and baking stone to the middle of the oven--which is as the recipes direct, only I had been baking on the lowest rack up till now.  (the oven therms are on the same rack as the stone).  Oh...I have been trying out bags of Harvest King (bread) and Ceresota (AP) rather than my usual KA.

 Is the switch in flour brands, or the shift in oven rack, enough to throw off the browning?  Do I need to be more obsessive over oven temp (hard to see when my glasses steam up!)?

Windi

Phila, PA

Hello all

You may remember me from my inaugral post as the break baker's flunkee.

Following the advice given in that thread, I've gone and given the pain l'ancienne formula a go (also from the BBA). The results were quite tasty, and explosive. I say explosive because, while carrying out the procedure for hearth-baking methods as described I blew up my oven light, leaving shards of glass throughout the second batch of breads. Three points to me!

Anyways, here's a pic. I've since made the challa (no pics though...), which proved to be also tasty, though not quite so volatile.

Cheers!

Stacey

 Stacey's Pain l'ancienne

I have successfully cultivated my sourdough starter, it is very lively, smells good, and looks good...I know you can't see, but I'm patting myself on the back right now.  My question is..now that I have it, how do I make bread from it.  Do I just substitute the commercial yeast with my starter?  And can I use just a rustic lean recipe?...flour, salt, starter and water?  Maybe 65% hydration???