MichaelH's blog

My starter died this summer due to starvation and neglect. It was watery and foul, but I seem to have revived it after a few feedings.

However, the point of this post is that in 2009 I took a couple of Tbs of this starter and smeared it on a piece of parchment, put it in the oven on the proof cycle (80*F) and left it overnight. The next morning I scraped of the dried flakes, put them in a freeezer bag and into cold storage it went at 0*. I revived them 2 days ago with water and flour; after 3 feedings at 12 hour intervals I have a frothy new starter. Highly recommended procedure.

The Weekend Bakery is one of my favorite websites. They recently posted the best video that I have seen on how to make and bake Classic French Style Croissants at home.  All of their videos and recipes are extremely well done, especially for "amateurs".

The forming video is here, and their baking log with recipe is here.

While browsing through my future bake folder I found a formula for Cherry Pecan au Levain from mountaindog. I've made this type of bread before but this formula caught my eye and it was time to try it out. Minor modifications to his formula were; 50g spelt substituted for 50g of the whole wheat, added 3 Tbs toasted wheat germ and 1 tsp diastatic malt, used a 50/50 mix of King Arthur bread flour and Honeyville Alta Artisan Unbleached All Purpose. The whole wheat, rye and spelt were fresh ground.

Hamelman's 5 Grain Levain is becoming one of our everyday favorites. Baked per the formula in Bread with added wheat germ.