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After two years of trying (and failing) to make various sourdough starters I have finally succeeded!  I used Maggie Glezer's firm sourdough starter (from zolablue's post).  I started in September and it was a little slow, then a family member got very sick so I just put it in the refrigerator for probably 5 weeks before getting it going about 10 days ago.  I managed to get it to double, then treble in size in 24 hours but remained frustrated that I couldn't do it in 8 hours.

Quite airy and evenly sized pockets dotted with added sunflwr sesame and walnuts..

Where i live daily temps exceed 32 celsius. Working with dough is a challenge. I hv followed ur site for quite a while and felt its time to begin sharing...

Took mths and mths to figure out what goes on with flour yeast and water and their interaction with so many other variables. I now hv my fav method which seems to work quite often tho not always.

Today i share with you my kitchen offerings- a seeded  loaf made with one third rye, seeds and nuts and sourdough.

Hoping that others in the tropics may find this useful.

I have been experimenting with different flours, different bulk fermentations, cold vs room temperature proofs, shaping, banneton vs. no banneton, etc. to see how the various changes would make a difference in the final bread.  I also tried different scoring patterns.  I really had fun.  I used combinations of AP flour, WW flour, rye, spelt and bread flour for the different breads. Most of the time, I used a variation of Classic Sourdough recipe below, often adding more ww, rye and spelt; one time I made five grain levain loaves with the soaker.

I used the start of Nicole Hunn’s  “No-Rye Rye Bread” for this recipe, but altered it quite a bit.  Gluten-free bread is frustrating, but I really wanted to make a sourdough loaf that improved on my last effort.

I made a sourdough starter from gluten-free flour and kept it in the refrigerator.  I used Nicole’s recipe, but it is confusing and complicated, so when I refreshed it, I just used gluten-free oat and tapioca flours the first time and buckwheat and brown rice flours the second time.  It perked up very well.

My wife and I have always enjoyed whole wheat bread. For many years, our favorite one has been Peter Reinhart's "100% Whole Wheat Bread" from BBA. Although a lot of my breads have 10 to 30% whole grain flour, I've really been thinking I need to be baking higher percentage whole grain breads, both for health reasons and because that's the way our taste is trending. So, I've been thinking about making Reinhart's WW bread for weeks.

Dear baking friends who joined in my challenge to create a Bread for the Knight with the Iron Hand:

YOU FILLED MY BASKET WITH 30 WONDERFUL LOAVES!!!

You thought about breads that were worthy of a famous knight from the middle ages, and, also, could please the palates of today's guests of Schlosshotel Götzenburg.

Still doing some experiments with the new cloche.

This was a delicious loaf. Actually got a shot of the crumb so thought I would post. Nothing that special.

This is the fourth recipe I have been asked to test from the upcoming Rye Bread baking book by Stan Ginsberg.  This one was much different than the first three.  It ended up being pretty simple to make and the final bread had a very tender crumb and soft crust with a nice mild tang to it.

Auguro A TUTTI Una buona giornata e vi lascio una fetta di this semplice ma straordinario dolce.

A presto, Anna

http://ilchiccoelaspiga.blogspot.it/2014/11/torta-di-mele-apple-cake-comfort-food.html