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I live in Thailand where many specialty baking items aren't available.  Improvising has been interesting, sometimes fun and occasionally quite frustrating.  Pictured is what I found at a local kiln to bake my breads in.  I would have loved a La Cloche, but this is working wonderfully.  To acheive an extra steamed effect I soak the lid of this unglazed terra cotta pot in water before I bake. 

I've been trying to improve my whole wheat loaves as a project for this year. The Italian breads I thought I'd master have been put on the shelf while I work with some home milled flour that I purchased from a local farm. My results with the 1-2-3 formula have been good but I wasn't satisfied in that I felt I could do more.

I may have mentioned somewhere in passing on these pages that I have a koi pond in my backyard.  It is a beautiful and peaceful thing in the warmer months, but can be just a little grim in the clutches of a Rocky Mountain winter and fatalities among the inhabitants can occur.  Since I am an omnivore, I try to be unsentimental about this, but there are always two factors that come into play in any fish death.  One, even though fish must die some time, as with all living things, I always feel that it has been some failure on my part to provide them with the right environment th

Many thanks to you all for your helpful posts and long discussions on the processes of breadmaking.  I have spent hours and hours reading your post and learning.  As a result of the all information I've gleaned I've been able to culture a sucessful sourdough culture and have had the pleasure of making beautiful, nutritious and delicious breads for my family. 

I went looking for a recipe that would use up some whole wheat and bulgar grain I accidentally mixed up.  I did not find that recipe (yet), but I did stumble upon this variation on Hamelman's Five Grain Levain posted by MadAboutB8 on her blog recently.  Thank you Sue!  As a result, I got distracted into this recipe, but since I had no sunflower seeds I substituted some raw pumpkin seeds we had in the cupboard.  I used Pendleton Mills Power (bread) flour, with home-milled hard white winter wheat for the whole w

When 3 separate ideas rush over me at the same time, well I'm helpless to stop the resultant activity. Recently I saw Larry produce some beautiful baguettes and the Margaritta star shape. That got me thinking.

Then Proth5 (Pat) posts about her new Bear-Guettes. A dual yeast French mix that has the promise of wonderful taste.

The final thing that pushed me over the edge was receiving a bag of Central Milling's Organic Artisan Baker's Craft (Malted) from a friend who knows I will put it to good use. 

I'm nothing if not a slave to fashion, so with a three-day weekend in hand I thought I'd give dmsynder's version of the SFBI miche a try. 

I followed the recipe pretty closely as printed.  The flour was King Arthur Bread mixed with 15% King Arthur Whole Wheat.  I did use the wheat germ, and also about 20 g of rye flour.  I probably ended up with a little more water (20-30 g) due to not reading quite far enough ahead in the ingredients list.

Levain

30g starter @ 100% hydration

60g whole wheat flour

60g water

Allow to ripen 8 - 12 hours.

Final Dough

150g levain

275g water

450g bread flour

80g dried longan

8g salt

This is my latest attempt at Ciabatta. I used this recipe:  

Jason's Quick Coccodrillo Ciabatta Bread

I have to be honest though... I liked the Ciabatta No Knead better. I liked the flavour of the No Knead bread better. I must admit that the Jason's Quick Coccodrillo Ciabatta might have had a more open crumb and is a pretty looking loaf it just lacked in taste. Here are a couple of photo's.

This is the measurments I used for 2 loaves.

233 gr. bread flour