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This time last week I had just started a new responsibility. Having been in Colorado a solid week and a half and started working at an old bakery in an institution of a hotel I came to find my days off horribly split across the weekend. Friday and Sunday off? What would happen, pray tell, to my Saturday? Fortune has turned her most beautiful face my way and I came to find that I would have two days off, in a row no less! It was simply cause for celebration. That being said, I decided to bake bread.

makes a 1 1/2 pound loaf(680g)

1 cup sourdough starter

1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt

1 tablespoon sugar

1 cup milk

1 tablespoon melted butter

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

2 cups unbleached all purpose flour

playing with my new favorite flour, very nutty tasting flour, makes fantastic bread loaves.

made with a rolled oat and honey preferment....i'll post the recipe in a bit..

made these for the first time, a bit of work goes into them, but well worth the work!! fork split and toasted with a lot of butter......UHHHHHH!

Hi! I just want to share these photos with you. I baked this bread a few weeks ago, soon after I made my AYW. The water was fresh, sweet, mild. The formula was very simple, and the bread was delicious. I'm not sure I used YeastWater properly (all the liquid was YW, and I did not made a preferment), but I take it as an experiment with a good result.

The formula was:

My partner is great at preserves and has recently turned her hand to olives, which were sourced from our small potted olive tree and branches overhanging fences around the neighbourhood. We see scrumping as a form of urban harvesting - the olives we took would have fallen to the street and rotted.

Last week was the big reveal. We'd waited months for the moment of tasting, so decided to make an occasion of it with a big farmhouse platter for dinner featuring the olives, an assortment of cheeses, some crudites and prosciuotto - and of course, a nice red.

Currently, I'm only baking three bread formulae (our daily breads), baguettes, and two sourdoughs: 50% each WW and Bread flours , and a mostly-white flour (equal amounts AP and Bread flours and 10% Whole Rye). I alternate the sourdough bakes week-to-week; and, for the two most recent bakes, I've retarded the fermenting dough for 17 hours @ 54°F. I'm doing this to extract maximum flavors.

This is the first mostly-white version with my new starter.(67% Hydration)

Hamelman’s Vermont Sourdough is one of my favorite recipes. It is so consistent in both flavor and texture. It’s hard to mess up this formula. It’s still pretty warm in Tallahassee, FL so paying attention to the Desired Dough Temperature (DDT) is important. Following Hamelman’s instructions I needed chilly water.

Desired Dough Temperature           76

Multiplication Factor                         4

This is an illustration of Shaping a dough into a ball (Boule). I learned this technique from San Fransisco Baking circle.

David (dmsnyder), was the first to demonstrate this shaping method here.(thanks David!). I thought of illustrating the method, and share it with all of you.