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I wanted to make a practice Pandoro for Easter.  It came out GREAT--and was simpler than I expected!  I used the recipe in Maggie Glezer's Artisan Baking.  I followed almost every direction to the letter (except shaping).  I used KAF Lancelot flour (14% protein) and SAF Gold yeast (along w/ SD starter).  I always have cocoa butter on hand, so that wasn't a problem.  I did use salted butter (unsalted is specified), so did not add any additional salt (the recipe uses a lot of butter!)

I have a question on the use of old dough.  I read somewhere that we can freeze old dough,  which I did to mine, probably about 14 days old. Now I'm taking out to use to try out on my Polaine de Champagne again. 

I took out from my freezer and refridgerator to defrost, not counter top. It looks like the yeast is still active.  Am I doing this right? should I have just defrost it within a short period and use it?  The colour and smell still stays good.

I went to my neighbourhood bookstore, Mary Ryan, after dropping my son to school the other day.  The timber flour and the Bach playing in the background made me want to stay longer.  I paid for a cookbook, [i]Bécasse[/i], and quickly left.  I wanted to have breakfast and coffee at Chouquette Boulangerie & Patisserie.  This was my first time ba

Following is a sweet tarali recipe for all seasons.  They are light, sweet and delightful...you can't stop eating them.  They are also great dunked in red wine.

6 large eggs

1-1/2 t. salt

½ cup shortening preferable Crisco

1/2 envelope of dry yeast

1/2-cup water

6 to 6-1/2 cups all-purpose flour (Do not use all the flour if not needed.)

well i have to admit i am hardly using yeast any more - all my breads are now based on my sourdough and its been living in my fridge for a few good months now .

i use the basic starter formula from Barry Harmon's site with a few changes for this bread :

60g of sourdough @ 75% hidration - i fed mine one day before mixing .

mix with 80g ap flour

20g whole grain rye flour

20g spelt flour

and 120g water

let is rest on the kitchen counter overnight ( i waited about 12 hours )

then add

200g ap flour

With a forecast temperature of 42 degrees CENTIGRADE  for the following day you would have to be mad to even thinking of lighting the oven, BUT that's what i did, my sourdough starter was looking pretty vigourus so i decided to put it to use. This bread EVOLVED,  i decided to use 500g white flour and 200g of my starter i then thought i would add my home brew lager beer, unfortunately i opened my dark stout by mistake.

Last week, I posted about my Horst Bandel bread from Hamelman's Bread. At first glance the crumb images looked good and the flavor was very good. However after some reflection on the bread and the process I decided my initial declaration of victory may have been over stated. While my first attempt was acceptable for a first try, I suspect I have much to learn about this style of bread.

Okay, now I have a starter and need a jar.  Do I need something special.  Certainly can do better than the expensive one from KA.  My big question is does it have to have air flowing or does it need a tight seal?  Can I use a mason jar with the metallic lid?  Can I use a quart canister that has a rubber seal and a small metal clamp?  Maybe it is not that important, but I want to do this right.  Thanks for your help.

New Baker

Inspired by Shiao-Ping and David (dmsnyder) I decided to try out my new bannetons (bought from SFBI) with two 1-kilo loaves made ala Gerard Rubaud. Rather than copy/scale either of their formulae, I went to the source http://www.farine-mc.com/ and did my own adaptation of Msr. Rubaud's formula. In a phrase...

I messed up!

Traditional Italian Eastser desserts, the taralli is a treasure from Apuglia.

http://turosdolci.wordpress.com