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I started this project two weeks ago out of boredom. It started out somewhat...disastrously. Started with 1 cup of water, 1 cup whole wheat flour a pinch of yeast and a pinch of sugar. Life was hunky dory for a couple days until hooch started to form and I realized that perhaps a super watery consistency was not right. After about four days of this, I fed the starter and stuck it in the fridge regardless and then things went...silent. About a week after the starter was stuck in the fridge, it got pulled out and a new feeding regime has begun!

Saturday using Rye Sour excess from an earlier baking--3 or 4 days ago--I built more Rye sour, flollowing Greenstein's Secrets of a Jewish Baker; I did stage 3 feeding late Saturday evening, and refrigerated the refreshed sour intending an early Sunday morning bake.

We make pizza nearly every week here at Chez Bullhog. When you have an outdoor pizza oven, it's hard not to: pizza has become an obsession. But, even without using the special oven, we've gotten pretty good at turning out a quality pizza. Here are some tips:

Stuck indoors with a head cold and raining all day..What would you do?  Surfed on my PC and landed at Steve's Bread Cetera blog.  http://www.BreadCetera.com   I thought the 100% White Whole Wheat looked delicious and then I saw his lovely Croissants...my husband and I love pastries and the neighbors get a sample too,  after seeing the wonderful posts on Shiao Pings blog with meat pies in puff pastry and TaxFarmer's  croissants, my sweet tooth took over...last night I made the poolish for both.

This weekends fun.

Home Bolted High Extration Hard Red Spring Wheat Miche

1050g Flour
578g Water
525g Leaven 100% hydration
26g Salt

Mix ingredients. Stir until there are no more dry spots. Autolyse for 60 minutes.

Fold  wait 30 minutes fold again. Bulk proof until almost double. Shape and proof

This weekend I made a miche with Gérard Rubaud's flour mix for the first time. It's nowhere near as beautiful as the ones with which Shiao-Ping introduced Rubaud's formula to TFL, but it is delicious. The miche does seem to have a more mellow flavor than the other breads I've made with this flour mix, but then I didn't slice and taste it for a good 15 hours after it was baked.

The flour mix and formula I used was ...

I thought to pass on this wonderful recipe from King Arthur's Whole Grain Cookbook.  The maple flavoring in the bread is a nice top note and the walnuts are a bonus with nice texture.  Try it...you'll like it.    You gotta love baking bread!

I've read a number of places on this fantastic site about the benefits of soaking whole grain flours before incorporating them into a dough, and I happened to give it a try yesterday while preparing today's loaf of bread, a Rosemary and Thyme Sourdough Boule.  While I was preparing the fresh herbs, I added the usual amount of (hot) water to the 1 cup of wholewheat flour I wanted to use in the dough.  That soaked while I stripped the thyme off the stalks and chopped the rosemary needles.  I threw the herbs on top of the soaking flour (and incidentally, I had also added the tab