Maryann279's blog

My daughter requested challah with raisins, so I decided to make a 2+ kg batch to have enough for us, her and to give away.

I just finished a week at SFBI taking their whole grain bread class.  We made about 20 different kinds of bread;  they were all good and many were outstanding.  There were lots of interesting shapes, and we used many add-ins, such as dried pears, nuts, seeds and sprouted wheat berries.  This was the third week-long class I've taken there, and I'm starting to be able to work more efficiently and keep up with the more experienced students.  As usual, there was a mixture of home bakers and professionals.  It was a very productive week and I'm becoming more certain

So I finally figured out why I was having trouble getting started on making bread at home after my second SFBI class.  It's the scheduling and planning ahead.  At one time I thought bread making could be scheduled around other activities.  Now I am finding out that it's the other way around:  you have to schedule your other activities around making bread.  It will probably continue to be this way until I get the hang of it all.  Non-prefermented, non-sourdough was usually not that much of a problem for me.  When you add in 12-hour preferments, levains, bri

I having been baking off and on for a long time, including making bread, but I finally got serious about it last fall.  This blog will chronicle my journey in the world of bread baking.  Warning:  I will be going into baker's percentages and other technical aspects of baking the bread, so this blog may be very boring ;-)