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It has been a few months since my last post. Have been busy with work and stuff. Still i have skim through the sites and have seen so many awesome breads baked by our TFLers.

Recently I have been mainly working on BREAD - By Jeffery H.

Tried a few recipes on its sourdough bread. They are all very tasty and perfect bread for toast, sandwiches and even just to have it by itself.

After 2 years baking at home, and 7 months in a professional bakery, I have finally figured out how to consistently get an open crumb in a poolish baguette.  The three things, IMHO, that I was doing wrong every time?  Not having a hot enough stone, UNDER mixing, and over proofing. 

The heart is like grain, we are the mill.

How does the mill know why it turns?

The body is the mill stone, the water its thoughts.

The stone says "The water knows its course."

The water says "Ask the miller, he is the one,

Who sends this water cascading down."

The miller says "If there is no turning,

O bread-eater, there will be no dough."

I forgot to take my SD Starter out of the fridge for baking today, so I used Yeast instead.

Mind you, my kids love this Bread and it tastes fantastic if I say so myself.

The taste is malty and nutty at the same time.

Ingredients

500g strong bread flour

300g wholemeal flour

200g rye flour

  30g salt

  30g butter

Used the middle-class brioche recipe for this bake with some changes.

1) I divided the dough into 3 portions - original, 4% matcha powder added, 8% cocoa powder added. I shaped them into rectangles and put one layer on top of the other, then rolled them up into a log shape and placed it into a loaf tin.

2) I did not put in fridge after developing the dough, which I regretted because the dough was very very soft.

3) I added 1 tsp of vanilla extract

The dough was overproofed because my wife was baking her cakes.

I don't get jealous of the usual list of suspects that crank out the "I gotta bake a loaf of that" breads. I get it that their skills weren't given to them and they had to put in their time at the work bench to learn the craft. They all probably baked a brick or two in their time before they got to where they're at these days. I've already baked a couple of bricks so I'm part way there. I keep winning ribbons at the Leavenworth County Fair where the Mennonite families are stiff competition so I know I'm improving.

After seeing Pa de pagès català - Catalan loaf posted by Abelbreadgallery about a week ago, I knew Lucy couldn’t resist making it something more to her liking by mixing it up some.  She has been struggling with her sprouted grain project but thinks she might finally have it sorted out after this bake- I’m not so sure since after she turned 10 she has slowed down recipe wise.

My second bake from last weekend had more to do with some fresh figs that I had found than it did with bread.  Although I grew up on a farm and had plenty of first hand experience with many kinds of fruit, figs weren't part of the local scene.  I don't recall seeing a fig outside of a Fig Newton cookie any time prior to my high school graduation.  When I did eventually encounter figs in their whole form, they were dried instead of fresh.  The farm, by the way, is located in northern lower Michigan, which explains the dearth of figs.

Consistency has much to recommend it but a person needs some variety in life, too.  Hence the first bake from this past weekend - Hamelman's Whole Rye and Whole Wheat bread.  Mostly.  It seems as though I've had more than my share of white breads in recent weeks.  It wasn't the result of any grand plan, just happenstance.  And they were good breads, too.  They just left me wanting something browner and grainier.  

I finally got a chance to answer Karin’s latest challenge.  It was a good one and left me with a good loaf of bread, too!