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Hi folks. ABC Rural Radio's 'Bush Telegraph' program has a regular segment called 'Food On Friday', and last year they broadcast a feature on sourdough bread. This included an interview with John Downes, the so-called "father of Australian sourdough", who is currently spreading the love in the UK.  I found the whole program compelling listening.

Caraway Rye Bread.

This is a favourite with my wife, and one I want to truly perfect in the next few months, for "Competition Bread" purposes.   It works as follows: 75% Strong White flour, and 25% Dark Rye in the form of a 15 hour sourdough culture.   Black strap molasses and caraway seeds for flavour; overall, just shy of 65% hydration.

Formulae, method and photographs shown below:

Rye Sourdough Refreshment and Final Dough for 2 large "Miche-style" loaves

Torta di Ricotta e Riso

Torta di Ricotta e riso is an Easter specialty. Some might call this a calzone or pizzagaina, but this torta has no meat. Ricotta is the favored cheese for Easter dishes in Italy and is made into pizzas, pasta's, cheesecakes and connoli.

http://turosdolci.wordpress.com/

I've been baking artisanal bread only eight months. TFL has been my primary mentor, and inspiration. Prior, I baked bread, weekly, in our Zojirushi bread machine, dutifully turning out three loaves of sandwich white bread, or 40% whole wheat sandwich bread: machine kneaded and proofed, oven baked. For hearth-baked breads we sought out commercial bakeries--San Antonio in the winter months, eastern Connecticut in the summers. On rare occasions I'd buy a packaged bread mix, and bake it in our Zo; we were usually dissapointed.

Another original idea. Lamb/wine braising liquid and ground rosemary mixed to about 75% hydration with KA AP flour. Stretched and folded in the bowl twice over three hours, left on the counter overnight at about 70 degrees. Further bulk fermentation of four or five hours due to the interference of a dentist's appointment. Back out on the counter for an hour, then gently plopped out of the bowl, stretched and treated like grissini, only fatter. Some were shaped with care. A crumb shot of one of these is shown.

Hello to everyone,

I would like to share with you guys my todays loaf.

I made it with brown flour feed 100% hydration sourdough starer.

Recipe:

375gr strong flour

127gr starter

245gr water

8gr salt

10gr vegetable oil

extra flour for dusting

1. first kneading time is for about 10minute by hand.

2. rest for 4-6hrs.

3. knead back for 10minute again by hand.

4. proof in banneton for 2.5hrs.

This is getting really exciting, beside being a daily food!

I baked this on friday. I stayed upto midnight to get it out of the oven because i don't have a space in my refrigerator for a proved dough.

It is basically a 75% hydration dough with 40% all purpose, 15% Rye, 45%  frshly milled whole hard wheat. The batard was baked under an aluminium foil pan for 25 minutes, and without for 30 minutes, oven door left open at the end of the bake for more crust.

Pain au Levain a la Vanille ( sourdough bread with vanilla )

I recently was gifted some beautiful organic vanilla beans. They have been calling to me from my pantry for a few weeks now. I wanted to incorporate them into some sort of bread but couldn't think of something that would pair well with the vanilla bean and still be good in a bread. I decided to let the smell and taste of vanilla to shine through and just use it on its own. 

Shiao-Ping's excellent post on Mr. Nippon's Baguette formula and the images of her crumb and those in the book inspired me. From what I can tell, the 12 hour cool autolyse as a significant effect on the dough. The dough is sticky as Shiao-Ping cautioned and acted differently from any other 75% hydration dough I have worked with. It was trying to wind it's way up the shaft of the dough hook on my DLX mixer for one thing. It was window paining BEFORE kneading.

Well, here it is!  My first ever blog post.  I have been thinking of starting a blog for awhile, if only to keep a catalog of the progress I've made in my bread making over the last year or so.  It is difficult to quantify progress without something down on paper, as it were, so I hope this will be useful for myself and others, being able to look back through recipes and pictures for future reference.  Anyway, I should give some background on my interest in bread baking.  I am an American living in Britain, and was visiting home for a family wedding over a year ago.