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1:52 p.m.:

Well, the dough has risen once and, as instructed, I have shaped it into two "irregular ovals," or at least what I hope are irregular ovals. Now they are sitting atop parchment paper, hopefully doubling in size again, waiting to be transferred to my pizza stone on the bottom of rack of the oven, which I will turn on to pre-heat in about 10 minutes. Here they were, just before I covered them:

Last year I spent nearly 90 hours to make sourdough pandoro. Twice (one failed attempt, one delicious success). And thought it was worthwhile. I must be crazy.

This year, I spent 90 hours to make sourdough panettone. Twice (one test run, one massive batch for gifts). Still think it's fun. They are coming to take me away anytime now.

On Friday night I baked the ciabatta from Rose Levy Beranbaums's The Bread Bible (TBB).  On Saturday I decided to try Peter Reinhart's recipe from Bread Baker's Apprentice (BBA) for comparison.  I am glad I did.  My results were success-failures.  I failed to properly shape the loaves from TBB, and as a result I ended up with broad, flat, spreading loaves with little or no loft/spring.  As a consequence of that I nearly over-baked them, although by appearance you would not think so.  I should have pushed the hydration more in the BBA loaves, because they ended

I was up at 3:30 to bake sourdough pannetones last night, thanks to my starter that has a mind of its own and dislike preset schedules. It was a sucessful bake, the breads are being hung upside down at home as I type, will take pictures and post about my yearly sourdough holiday bread "torture" in a few days. In the mean time...

Hello, I made a big batch of Sourdough with Liquid Levain from Advanced Bread and Pastry, adding about 23% dried cranberries and homemade candied organic orange peel. I had tried to make a similar bread earlier this month, and wanted to try again, to give as gifts - thought friends and family might like this bread for making turkey sandwiches next Sunday! Will be freezing these in the meantime.
Here are the pictures, first, the dough (about 4750 g after the fruits were added), and then the bake,
2 x 1000g, 5 x 350g, and 4 x 250g):

since we're having a lovely cold winter here in florida in spite of la ninia i've started baking again. i've just got done with my second baguette and the thirds in the fridge-- the first one stuck to the pan i was using to shift it into the oven but it was still tasty. this last one stuck to the couche because i'm trying to be a bit more conservative with adding flour since i think my loaves have been too dusty.

Stumbled across this link today and thought you guys might enjoy it:

Let It Dough! <-- Creation according to Dough

Admit it...you're all going to be playing a bit the next time you're in the kitchen, aren't you ;)

Not a lot to report this weekend.  The highlight was the Saturday morning bread handoff from David.  We adopted a dozen or so wayward loaves from his SFBI adventure: a baguette, an Italian bread in baguette shape (Stirato?), an olive bread, a raisin walnut bread, a couronne, several airy decorative loaves, and--best of all--a miche.  Here's the haul, minus the five loaves already in the freezer.

For the family dinner tonight at my daughters home.  I was asked to bring cupcakes..red velvet cupcakes.  I've never made a red velvet cake so I decided this morning to add a Yule Log, this is a first also, as you can probably tell a lot of last minute baking on my part.  It has been a very busy week.  My family 'not including myself and husband' are leaving to spend Christmas in Hawaii in a few days.  So we planned some holiday celebration early.  They are very much into red velvet cake lately...I didn't want to make cupcakes so make cakes.

Hi all,