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I've had a hard time with bagels.  I have asked a few questions here about my wrinkled bagels that I've made (thanks Mark Witt).  I made Bagels while being a recipe tester for Peter Reinhart's "Artisan Bread Every Day".  I also have made them from "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" but they were always wrinkled.  While testing recipes for Norm & Stan I had some success with their Montreal Bagels.  I did not do anything very different, these just turned out.  So I have been frustrated with bagels.

The formula is very loosely inspired by a bread in Beth Hensperger's "Bread for All Seasons", but I made so many changes, it no longer resemble the original.

I made a potato bread today, using Dan Lepard's recipe from The Art of Handmade Bread (AKA The Handmade Loaf) as the basis and tweaking it a bit.  If memory serves me right, I used:

300 grams water

200 grams mashed potatoes

500 grams bread flour

1 tablespoon sourdough starter (cold from the fridge)

1 tablespoon honey

2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon instant yeast

After many months of studying other's attempts, I finally baked this bread. I apologize for not including a picture. I followed the formula to the letter, had a bit extra to put in a loaf pan, which I froze for my next batch. Overall, I'm very pleased with my first attempt. It came out beautifully dark, nearly black. The crumb is dense but chewy, very complex in flavor despite the absence of spices. I love the whole rye berries. I think the crust is a little too tough, perhaps I overcooked?

Well, this week was a little disappointing one in baguette land.

Made the old standby again.  I really love this bread.  I have a question though.  First, the recipe:

9 oz starter (100% hydration)

9 oz whole wheat flour

9 oz white flour

9 oz bread flour

18 oz water

1 T salt

I mixed it all in my KA for about 5 minutes, then did 2 stretch and folds over an hour.  The dough was VERY wet so I folded in about 1/8 cup flour.  It retarded overnight in the fridge, then one more stretch and fold, divide, preshape.  Rest and rise for about an hour.  Then shaped and pulled taut.

The recent discussions regarding baking breads in hot versus cold Dutch ovens - those from "Tartine Bread" in particular - prompted today's experiment.

This bread is a variation of a recipe for Dinkelvollkornbrot by Nils' from Ye Olde Bread Blogge. The original recipe, found in his excellent book, calls entirely for spelt. I've made quite a few recipes from this book and each has been extraordinary. Nils' formula produces a moist bread with mildly sour undertones.

When I was working part time looking for a job I found bread baking to be a fulfilling enjoyable part of my day to look forward to. Since starting work full time as a teacher however my bread baking has dropped to zero as lesson planning has taken up more and more time. Then a couple of weeks ago I found out I would be teaching microbes to year 8's (~12 years of age), so I couldn't resist the chance to combine something I love with what should hopefully be a good way to teach some of the topic.

Having been through a series of bakes with the basic Tartine loaf, I thought the right balance would be to go over to Hamelman for something. I chose the Vermont Sourdough with Increased Whole Grain because it seemed like a nice alternative to the white flour/open crumb quest of my recent Tartine baking.