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I do believe I am closing in on my goal of a tasty, presentable and above all reliable baguette, folks.  At the very least, the results have been reliably tasty of late, which will do for a start!

Anyway, here was last week's bake.  Still a lot of bursting between cuts despite loading the steam pans a couple minutes before loading the loaves.  Great ears though.

Exterior

Updated: 3/31/2011 

 Aki san no Baguette
I want to introduce one of amazing Japanese home bakers Aki who makes great baguettes that I have been trying get the crumb like hers.  I really thank Aki who let me post her great baguettes here. Here is  her blog and baguette's formulas.   And, Please leave a comment for her if you think that her baguettes are great. She will be happy to hear it from you, guys. :)

I just finshed my blog entry about our trip to the US Virgin Islands. Nothing bread worthy happend during this week, but I still would like to share one picture:

The story behind this sugar plantations is not that great, here the Danish played the exploiters, but to have something like this in my backyard... well on a island like this dreaming is permitted!! BTW they still use this WFO.

Thomas

I made SteveB's croissants today. Here is his formula and method.  http://www.breadcetera.com/?p=117  Thank you, Steve!

A couple of weeks ago i got that feeling in my stomach that I have to bake bread again. I used to bake quite a bit until six months ago and I felt it is the time to start baking again. For this I had to create a new sourdough starter as I sadly found my old one molding in the back of the fridge. I started it with some rye flour and water and converted it gradually to a white flour stater. When it was active and vigorous enogh. I decided to bake with it. I chose to try David's San Joaquin, wich I've been wanting to try for a long time.  

One of my favorite breads from Hamelman's Bread is Pain Rustique (comes right before "Country Bread" and "Rustic Bread").  The bread is unshaped like a ciabatta, although it only has 69% hydration, and is scored before baking.  When I get it right (as opposed to, say, forgetting the salt and yeast following the autolyse, as I did the first time I tried the formula), it produces a toothsome crust and a flavorful, moderately open crumb.

Twelve days ago I posted this topic about my troubles with an all white flour version of my successful whole wheat and rye starter.  Since then I have been nursing that starter with multiple daily feedings, and keeping it quarantined from my other starter to avoid cross-contamination.  Based on research, and excellent direct advice, the issue was diagnosed by David Snyder and Debra Wink (Thanks to both of you!) as thiol degradation and I proceeded to try to "feed through it".

I have just read some comments posted by 'Frelkins' about Jeffrey Hammelman's 'Horst Bandel's Bread' and a pumpernickel by Claus Meyer. The comments were posted awhile back, but the long, slow bake described sounded wonderful! I was hoping this baker could post a recipe using the long slow bake they described. Thank you.

Every now and then, I take a break from making multigrains bread to fruit bread. I've also been wanting to try making bread with walnuts for quite somtimes, influenced by many wonderful entries from TFL members.

Cranberry and walnuts is a food pair that appears together quite often and I wanted to try making bread with cranberries. So, here go the bread from my last weekend's bake, cranberry and walnut sourdough.

Yes, this brioche has 100% butter ratio, i.e butter weight == flour weight. According to BBA 80% butter brioche is considered "richman's", so this brioche is probably "Bill Gates'"?