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Hamelman's 5-Grain Levain is always a delight with a crunchy crust and moist crumb full of seedy goodness. Highly recommended. Specifically, take the no-added-yeast/cold retard overnight option. It truly does make an enormous difference in flavor - for the better.

The exuberant oven spring and bloom is characteristic of this bread.

I changed the hydration and because the starter had been refreshed two days prior, I used 60g rather than 50. The holes are just too darned big! It makes a decent sandwich loaf, but not quite what I was looking for. I searched some youtube videos and unlike Peter Reinhart, Ciril Hitz degasses his ciabattas and does not fold and his crumb structure is more even. I like the shape Peter's letter fold gives, but next bake of this loaf I will de-gas gently before folding to see if I can get a more uniform crumb structure.

Last couple of times I made bread there was little gluten development despite using a combo of french folds and stretch and folds. The doughs just collapsed  into an unstructured mass of glop. I tried baking in pans which was my original intent anyway since I was trying to make pain de mie but had no spring and a gummy interior. The doughs were naturally leavened so I thought it might either be my starter or maybe the kitchen had become infected by those insidious strings that mini oven has had trouble with.

Well with ski season full on, I have been living on Norm's onion rolls, pulla and Floyd's blueberry, cream cheese braid variations for three months now. This ciabatta is the first plain, lean loaf I have baked in some time. Sometimes you just get a taste for things.

This loaf was baked using 350g strong bread flour @ 78% hydration and using 50g newly refreshed liquid levain, 7g salt and 1TBs EVOO. I used vigorous mixing in the bowl followed by four sets of S&F's with 10 minutes rest and after 2 hours of bulk rise, then gently shaped as described by Peter Reinhart in ABED.

Today was my first attempt at a rye loaf! I decided to start cautiously so I went with Peter Reinhart’s “Transitional rye sandwich loaf”. It definitely didn’t disappoint.

I wasn't sure what i was supposed to expect in terms of the crumb, i know that rye tends to yield fairly dense loaves, but this is a lot lighter than i thought, probably due to the fact that there is only about 41% rye flour.

I think I'm finally getting the hang of the shallow scoring at a low angle. I love the gradient of light to dark I'm getting on the batard. And even some blistering from the several hours in the fridge..

This was using Hamelman's Country Bread recipe (with the 50% pre-ferment)

This was one of the first sourdough recipes I tried when starting out last spring - and I failed royally with it, ending up with blown-out wonky loaves with flying crusts and a kitchen smeared in sticky dough. Admittedly I was a relative newcomer to baking bread and made every possible newbie mistake with it.

Wanting a change from the last few loaves of pain sur poolish, my baking supervisors - Poppy and Lexi - suggested I take the plunge and give this a whirl again. But this time, I've taken a lot of advice, lessons and feline displeasure on board.

I haven't had much time lately for baking so it was nice to spend a day in the kitchen. 

This is by far the best German Hefezopf I have baked and I have tried heaps of different recipes. This one is so light and fluffy and stayed fresh for days.  

Recipe can be found here 

http://www.chefkoch.de/rezepte/378801124204434/Friedas-genialer-Hefezopf.html

After getting Alan in trouble with his latest higher whole grain (25%) SJSD baguettes, Lucy felt terrible about it and when he shot back a challenge bread for her with a 7 Stater,  4 Sprouted Grain bread after last week’s 4 Starter, 7 Grain Bread. 

The first of this year's volunteer daisies popped up on my birthday last week

1/1/2016 - New Year’s Eve Pizza – 2015

1/5/2016 - Westphalian Pumpernickel – 1537

1/8/2016 -  3 Starter Italian Olive Bread with Rosemary and Sun Dried Tomato