Memorial Day baking

My parents were up from Atlanta this weekend, so with five folks in the house, I baked up a storm. We had pizza Friday night, poolish baguettes Saturday night, and on Sunday I baked five loaves:

* Two panned loaves of whole-wheat sourdough.
* Two loaves of potato, rosemary and roasted garlic sourdough (in the "fendu" shape)
* One panned loaf of whole-grain and seed whole-wheat sourdough.

Pictures below:

The two loaves of whole-wheat with the multi-grain loaf in the center. I'd bought a bag of King Arthur Flour's Harvest Grains Blend a couple of months ago, and every time I opened the freezer, it stared back at me, saying, "Bake me." So I did. I soaked about 6 oz of the stuff in boiling water overnight and then added it to my regular weekly bread. It made the dough pretty wet, but not so wet that I added any additional flour. Also added enough bulk so that I had to bake it in a 9x5 pan.

It added about 15-20 minutes to the bake, but the flavor was great. The flax seeds and rye flakes added a strong, earthy flavor to the bread, while the oat groats and sunflower seeds gave a nutty undertone and a nice chewy texture. I'll be making this again. A nice contrast with some peanut butter on it!

Here's the rosemary, potato and roasted garlic sourdough loaves. I pretty much converted Jeffrey Hammelman's recipe from a biga to fit my stiff starter, and the results were nice. When I do it again this weekend, I think I'll reduce the rosemary by half and double the roasted garlic. I used 1% fresh rosemary and 3% roasted garlic (about 1 head), and the garlic was a little too understanded for my preference. Still a delicious loaf, but I'd have prefered less rosemary and more garlic.

I'll be baking quite a bit this coming weekend. Our daughter's day care held a fundraising auction, and I auctioned off four loaves of bread. Can't wait to see what they want.