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I've been baking bread a long time and I'm still amused by the narrow line between success and failure. I fed my sourdough starter last night in preparation for baking a (singular) rustic loaf today. When I looked at the starter early this morning it had grown to over 16 oz. by weight. Being a frugal person I decided to use all the starter and made a monster ball of dough. I blended 2 recipes, substituted and blended flour, and basically just winged it with autolyse, proofing, and shaping. I ended up with a 2 1/2 pound boule and 20 2 oz. rolls.

My lovely husband brought two bottles of Polish beer. He is not an average man who enjoys his time with pals watching games and drinking beer. He said that he was given the beer and  I could make the bread with it. 

So I did. In my opinion the best place for alcohol is in food. I also marinated and baked a leg of lamb with the second bottle of beer.

1st build of the sourdough starter

Wednesday 1:30PM-8PM

My first attempts at boules weren't so grand and glorious.  I had several flat, dense loaves that I was too ashamed to take pictures of.  Things have progressed but I am just a newbie.  My friend called me a bread nerd, I felt kind of excited about that.  Maybe I can truly be a bread nerd someday.  I made a pretty good loaf this morning, but now I want to do something a little more daring...like add more ingredients.

I finally got around to make the famous SFBI (San Francisco Baking Institute) Miche the past weekend. I have been wanting to try this recipe for sometimes after reading so much rave reviews from the TFL members.  

The recipe was posted by David (dmsnyder). Many of the TFL members have made this Miche and all reported fantastic results (many thanks to David and all TFLers who baked the bread and share their results). 

If you enjoy my blog, please check out the original at leighbakes.wordpress.com!

Thanks for reading!

Read the original blog post here!

Hi I tried mixing some of the bread mix and letting it rise, then let it sit in the fridge overnight.

The next day I mixed in some more yeast and some more flour (quite a lot actually) and this monster came out :D 

(Ingredience are strong flour, 1 egg, some veg oil, full fat milk, dry yeast, demerera sugar)

:) I think it could have done with a little more time in the oven, so I popped it back in - I also covered it with a tea towel to try to soften the crust - it's worked pretty well.

I live in Thailand where many specialty baking items aren't available.  Improvising has been interesting, sometimes fun and occasionally quite frustrating.  Pictured is what I found at a local kiln to bake my breads in.  I would have loved a La Cloche, but this is working wonderfully.  To acheive an extra steamed effect I soak the lid of this unglazed terra cotta pot in water before I bake.