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Hi all! I've been one busy person what with the holidays, kids, etc. But now life is settling into a more calm and regular rhythm. So, I'm BACK!

Over the holidays, Steve from Breadcetera, and I did a flour swap (yes, it cost a fortune!). We sent each other dried samples of our starter and flour. I sent him some organic stone-ground T55 and T65 and he sent me some KA AP and bread flour. Not so much because he himself uses that particular flour, but he figured it would give me an idea of the type of flour many people bake with.

I needed some easy  burger buns and these were perfect with just a few changes!  Hamburger/sandwich Buns with added 12 grain KA flour and potato.  I left out the gluten...original recipe from Beth Hensperger Bread Machine Cookbook.  She has some amazingly good recipes in this book!  These had a very nice flavor and crust with a tender crumb....great for sandwiches!

In getting started down the path of baking, I'd been having problems with dough failing to rise in the oven or the second time - so the enthusiasm of this bread comes in having the faith to cut my rise times in half sine I was using Fleishman's instant yeast.  Once I did this, I was able to get the bread I finally wanted without the disappointment of a heavy, dense loaf that seemed like it should work.

I hope everyone had a merry Christmas and lovely new year celebrations!

After getting the rye sauerteig starter from Leader's Local Breads going, I have been gradually working my way through Hamelman's rye sourdoughs. I've become completely enamored with hearty rye loaves, and I feel I am getting a bit better at working with these kinds of doughs.

Rustic baguettes and ciabatta from Gosselin's formula (as described by Peter Reinhart)

Pain à l'Ancienne baguette crumb

I made these baguettes and ciabatta from the formula Reinhart says he got directly from Phillipe Gosselin. The version in "Bread Baker's Apprentice" is a modification.

I made this danish pastry from the recipe on Breadcetera by Michel Suas.  "Thank you very much Steve, your video is wonderful!"  It's definately an improvement over the first posted Danish Pastry...being Irish I of coarse used the suggested unsalted Kerrygold Irish butter...but I really think I would have liked a Danish Cream butter better in my pastry...this is just a personal opinion....the very first time I attempted making a Danish Pastry it was a sourdough one and I used a regular unsalted organic butter and I just liked the way it baked up a lot better and the

A few things converged on this fateful day. I had a craving for hummus, and I was out of pita bread. I didn't really feel like going to the store just for pita bread and then I started wondering how hard pita bread was to make. So to the google! And that's when the Fresh Loaf website informed me of the greatest fact ever. Pita Bread is one of the easiest breads you'll ever make. So the first thing I discover is that it's also one of the cheapest breads that I'll probably ever make.

 Please Note: This tutorial has been updated extensively with additional material and new and improved videos. Here is a link to the updated Bread Scoring Tutorial: Scoring Bread: An updated tutorial

Scoring Bread

What is scoring?

I printed out a recipe for this Danish Pastry dough and made the recipe:  I was not happy with the way the dough came out at all...it seemed way to stiff from the beginning and it had some brown sugar in it...which seemed strange....the dough just did not handle easily for me.  They did not bake right for me at all.  After making these I went back to the site where I 'thought I had copied the recipe'...It had a different recipe on it!!  I looked at my copy of the recipe...only to discover I had printed out a recipe from another site...Ooooh!  I knew there was so