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I've been baking bread at home for about 5 years.  I mainly use recipes from Leader's Local Breads, Robertson's Tartine 1 and 3, and a few of Reinhart's books.  I like making a variety of breads, but I tend to favor those using sourdough and whole grains. My starter, Tom, is about 5 years old and is currently fed with AP flour.

I've enjoyed reading the blogs and recipes on this site, and I look forward to learning more about bread making with everyone!

Phil Agnew – PiPs, is either a baking genius or a mad man.  Or maybe a mad man genius.  Only now am I starting to pay attention to what he had published on TFL a few years ago, prior to my time trapped in this other dimension known as the TFL Zone.  I had long ago noticed and admired the Also on TFL photo and link to his Sesame Whole Wheat Levain Double Hydration batard.

Yes this is the - Willing to work hard and sacrifice much sprouted sourdough bread.  This week Lucy and I have been talking about why things are the way they are in the universe and why that it is so important for success in all things....including bread making.

Since the family loved the apple bread so much, I decided to try again with a few tweaks. As suggested by dabrownman and Reynard in my last blog, I soaked my dehydrated apples in the cider. I also decided to forgo the instant yeast and rely on my levain to do all the rising of the bread. So this is how I went about it:

Yet again, it's been way too long since I last posted. I won't dwell on the reasons, because we all have them...the important part is that I've still been baking, even in these crazy North Carolina summer temperatures!

I'll focus on posting some photos of bakes from the last few months, but I also wanted to share a few thoughts I've been mulling recently 

1) Bulk fermentation:

I've had this recipe for a long, long time, it dates back to 2006. It takes 3 days to develop but it is an easy bread to make and never fails. It has a lovely aroma and taste.

I have made it in rings like Petra did on her blog, but last Saturday morning at 5am it was really chilly and I felt lazy and in a hurry to get back on my electric blanky. So a simple boule would have to do. Still tastes great, just not as impressive on the eye.

Back in April, Khaled let me know he had enrolled in the Sourdough Bread workshop at the San Francisco Baking Institute. I volunteered to meet him there and, after he had a night to recover a bit from the 15 hour flight from Dubai, take him on a tour of San Francisco bakeries and show him some of the city sights. I also volunteered brother Glenn, who lives in San Francisco, to act as native guide. 

As I was looking through Jeffrey Hamelman's book Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes, I saw the recipe for Normandy Apple Bread. Having a couple of apples laying around the house, I thought I would give it a try. So, I started the levain build and then found my dehydrator so I could dehydrate the apples by morning. Took 2 apples for the amount required for one loaf.

That stands for Alfanso’s Sesame Semolina Levain Batards.

  I love pecans and remembered the other day that I had some pecan meal left over just yelling at me to use it.  What better use than in a new version of a porridge bread.

I also found some bulgar, cracked wheat, rye chops and malted wheat flakes to use in the porridge which smelled amazing while cooking.

I used some fresh milled spelt, durum, and rye along with some AP flour, potato flour and KAF French style flour.