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Thought someone out there would enjoy the soap opera of a sourdough newbie..LOL! I have been studying the techniques of many mentors here..I had my notes on the long proof of my starter,autolysing, folding & shaping, slack doughs, retarded rise..too many facts for my feeble brain I fear!! I took my starter out Friday, poured out but 1/4 cup and fed with 1/2 c flour & 1/2 cup H2O..a little later bubbling and very happy..into the oven with the light on overnight..Saturday morning (12 hours later)slowing down..so I feed & back into the oven.

I made some beer bread on Saturday and held back some of my dough to make a second batch once my Super Peel arrived - the first batch was very good, so I have no complaints over making it again. The Super Peel seems fantastic! I am a little wary of using it just because gadgets that seem easy to me always seem to blow up in my face, but I shaped my dough and let it do its final rise on the peel, and then had absolutely no trouble transferring the dough to the baking stone - something that's been quite a headache in the past.

Surprisingly, the sweet potato didn't gave as much sweetness as i expected. But it actually helped tenderize the dough and really keeps it moist. The bread came out soft and nice (without added fat), and didn't go dry even in the fridge after more than a day. Perhaps later on, i might experiment with yam, avocados, zuchinni, carrots & ...parsnips?? :P

Howdy all, I've been lurking around this website for about a week and decided to join in. I'm an occasional bread baker who would like to improve my loaves. I got into it because my sons have nut/sesame seed allergies. This meant my wife and I could not trust a normal bakery for good rustic bread because there is no way to be assured that the bread didn't get cross-contaminated with sesame seeds or nut products.

I was just playing with some ingredients on Sunday afternoon, and this is what I came out with - it wasn't perfect, but is probably my favorite breakfast/dessert bread that I've made to date. Ingredients: 1.5 cups water (80-85 degrees) 1.5 cups freshly brewed coffee (allowed to cool to 80-85 degrees) .5 cup whole milk 1.25 cups chocolate chips 4 tablespoons brown sugar 2 tablespoons white granulated sugar 1.5 cups all purpose flour 2-5 cups bread flour (enough to give a good dough consistency - slightly tacky, but not wet) 1 packet instant yeast 1 tablespoon finely ground sea salt Combine t

For the Lunar New Year, aka. Chinese New Year, which was yesterday, i made a batch of steamed buns with sweet black sesame fillings. They were soft and fluffy, except for the age of my flour, which gave a yellowish tinge to it, i think. :) Happy Year of the Dog!

So today I am pretending to camp in our living room with my three (almost four) year old son. At one point, while he is pretending to be a daddy, he turns to me and says "Now, I have to bake some bread and make some pizzas. You stay here and play with mommy and your sister for a few minutes" and marches off to the kitchen. Doh!

Hey Guys, Lucky me I am going to Paris in the spring of this year and I plan on hitting at least one of the bakeries/ patisseries I know of, that being Poilane. However, I want to know pf any others I should hit. Any ideas anyone? Thanks Ryan

Sourdough photos: Yum.

I had an unmitigated success with my sourdough starter today. Two round loaves of something resembling my rustic bread but with my starter instead of yeast. I pulled the starter out and started feeding it every 12 hours beginning Thursday evening. During that time I kept it in my oven with the light on so that it was in a 80 to 90 degree environment. It seems to require that: without it, I don't even get a doubling in 24 hours. With it I get nearly a tripling in size in about 8 hours.