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I loved the deep wheaty taste of the whole-wheat levain that I posted about last time, and I feel the preferment itself (a wet whole-wheat preferment) added a tangy, earthy flavour to the loaf. It'll be interesting to experiment with different flours in future preferments, as it could be an easy way to "extract" more of the flavour and aroma characteristics of the flour that is used.

Woman does not live by rye or barley alone.

So this woman decided to follow suit, when she saw that a lot of other bloggers on The Fresh Loaf were having fun with bagels. I have a formula for Montreal-style bagels from my instructor at baking school. He got it, scribbled in pencil on a brown paper bag, from bakers at the St. Viateur Bagel Bakery where they've been supplying bagel lovers since 1957.

Many years ago I became interested in Suzuki Daisetsu's (or known in the West as Daisetz T. Susuki, 1870 - 1966)'s Japanese Zen Buddhism. He was accredited in bringing interest in Zen and Buddhism to the West in the early 20th century. Before I realised it years later, the stuff I was reading was actually Zen aestheticism, rather than Zen per se.

As Mini O said last year, this is a nice easy little loaf. But "easy" belies how much I've learned from working with Tom Jaine's formula. This loaf did its job in teaching me about barley!

First, it taught me how tasty barley can be and what a shame it is that this wonderful grain has been overlooked through much of history and especially in recent years.

A couple days ago, I baked some baguettes with a new (to me) flour – Bob's Red Mill Organic Unbleached White Flour. The dough was much more elastic than I expected, and the baguettes had a thicker, crunchier crust and chewier crumb than expected from a flour that is supposedly 11.7% protein, the same as KAF AP flour. (The Nutritional Information on the BRM bag specifies 4 gms of protein in each 34 gm serving.)

I'd have made a killing!

Six weeks ago, I blogged on my Sourdough Italian Bread. I made an offhand remark that "I am pretty sure this is the roll I would choose for a meatball sandwich, oozing mozzarella and dripping marinara sauce."

Well, I obviously stimulated lots of people's cravings. The past two weeks have seen a virtual meatball bombardment, here on TFL and even on SusanFNP's Wild Yeast Blog. 

This morning after my spinning class I stopped by the local farmers market. While I was there I picked up some beautiful dark green zucchinis and immediately thought of the wonderful spicy taste of fresh zucchini bread. This recipe has been in my family for as long as I can remember - a family friend shared it with my mother ages ago. Hope you enjoy!

Trying to figure out what to do with starter discards is a common topic. But, what about pastry dough? I always end up with odd bits of tart dough or puff pastry that are left over from something I made. About a week ago my twelve-year-old niece, Carli, was visiting from Texas and, in addition to numerous loaves of bread, we made several tarts with pate sucree and puff pastry. After she left, the leftover dough pieces sat around in the fridge all week and needed to be used, frozen, or thrown away.

I found a small piece of Paris in Brisbane this morning.  Today is Saturday and a usual sports day for our household.  After dropping my daughter at hockey and my son at soccer, I gave myself a treat - I went to Chouquette Boulangerie Patisserie for coffee and ... whatever I could find there this morning.  It was a year ago when it has just been open that I last went there ... on the recommendation of my gay friend, the seamster.  He has not been well, and I have not been able to see him.   

Ciabatta rolls using Flo Makanai 1-2-3 formula.  The hydration was so wet when I mixed the formula using King Arthur bread flour.  I though it best to try making some Ciabatta rolls.  I pre-heated the oven and stones at 485 and baked under a foil cover for 10 min.