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In my last post, I experimented with spelt flour in a country bread. The flavor was very appealing with slight nutty undertones and the bread came out great! However, I'm never satisfied with my last bread and always want to push into new areas. So I decided to increase the spelt in the formula from 10% to 20%.

There are not too many things I like more than a pastrami sandwich, so when my wife suggested I try using some left over pastrami on a pizza I figured it was worth a shot.  I also had some left over smoked pulled pork in the refrigerator so I figured I would make a barbecued pulled pork pizza as well

I found this when going through some old files on my computer: (pdf file) Marcel Desaulnier's Old-Fashioned Speckled Chocolate Cake.pdf

Oh, boy i feel at home, again!

Not only baking is addictive, it has become a part of me now. Almost 3 months of bed rest, and ayurvedic therapy, 1 of which was spent in Kerala, the beautiful southern city of India; has never detached me from thefreshloaf site, nor did my enthusiasm for bread baking waver.

If you haven't tried David Snyder's SF Sourdough bread technique yet, you really should.  It is a crusty, tasty bread that is very forgiving to make.  I have made it a number of times, and have been making some small adjustments to fit my schedule and my tastes.  In the last two weeks, I baked it twice and thought I would share some photos.

I was commenting on txfarmer's very nice 30% rye sandwich bread that we use left over cream to make ice cream in AZ when it is scorching hot in the summer - instead of pechy scones like she does.  The batch finished yesterday, after a 2 day process, came out better than usual because we managed to have most everything on hand to put it over the top.

The first day is used to make the ice cream base:

Sending this to Yeastspotting.

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I love a good country bread as I think most people do. It is one of the most fun, beautiful and often times challenging styles of bread to make. However, I find myself becoming bored of the standard 10% whole wheat flour in the formula. In an attempt to changes things up I will often raise or lower the percentage of whole wheat in the dough. As little as a 10% change can have drastic effect of flavor. I've also tried putting all the whole wheat in the starter, something that adds quite a bit of sourness to final flavor.

After getting back from Houston where it rained cats and dogs, I had to bring it back to Phoenix since we have been dry for a year.  It has rained just about every day since returning.   It is monsoon but yesterday, we had to get nearly 1.5" of rain at home where we only get 7" a year.  The clouds were ominous.

Then they got orange in a pinkish way as the sun set.