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Another day off, another baking adventure!

I don't have my notes with me as I write this, so I'll just give an overview.

After last weeks attempt at a basic french loaf, I went back to re-read a few things, including my copy of The Baker's Apprentice. This book has been a big part of my push to get into baking, and it includes a lot of great tips and ideas that are easy for me to get my head around.

My husband requested a recipe I'd made a few years back (before I got into sourdough) of kubaneh from the cookbook Golden. Since I now know a bit more about bread, I decided to make some slight changes. I didn't have time to convert to sourdough, but I did add 10% sourdough starter and added some whole wheat. It was even better than I remembered! Next time I'll convert the recipe to sourdough. This bread is baked in an 8-inch deep cake tin covered in tinfoil and the outside gets beautifully dark and caramelized. The burnt bits are the best part. Yum!

I bought some Glenn wheat berries from Kenter Canyon farm at the Atwater Village farmers market ( in Los Angeles). It was $2 per pound, not cheap but not too outrageous. The Glenn wheat is grown in Santa Rosa, California. I’m currently buying hard red spring wheat from Montana Flour and Grains by mail, and I would like to transition to a more local supplier. 

I came across this recipe a few weeks back. It talks about making a 40% hydrated starter to be left neglected for a few weeks while acid builds up and yeast permeates the starter. Later that "seed sourdough" is used as part of the bread recipe.

I made Maurizio's waffles with some discard this morning.  You'll find his recipe here. The modification was to use a blend of 50% whole buckwheat flour and 50% unbleached bread flour in place of the 250g of all-purpose. Otherwise it was pretty much the same.  I had been accumulating starter from feedings this past week in a glass jar in the fridge.

Hi,

I'm not sure why my loaf turned out so flat and dense. I have a few suspicions but I was wondering if anyone could give me suggestions on how to improve.

Starter 150 g
AP flour 300 g
150 g bread flour
Whole wheat 55 g
Water 364 g (76%)
Salt 12 g
IDY (1/8 tsp to supplement starter)

2 tbs oatmeal (soaked then pressed dry)
120 g toasted chopped walnuts
100 g dried dates

I had some bananas sitting around and was inspired by a banana sourdough post from Trailrunner. I'd also been itching to make another chocolate sourdough, so I decided to make the two doughs and laminate the two together. I found it pretty hard to develop the gluten in the banana dough (which uses almost no water and just bananas for hydration), so I won't be surprised if this is a dense loaf. One loaf looks quite pretty from the outside, the other is a lovable mutant with bumps and lumps. 

I took a break from weekly baking over the Xmas holidays. I did bake a batch for my brother during that time but that was it. Amazing how easy one batch seems when you don’t have to repeat everything 4 times. 

Big bread – about 30% whole wheat with bread flour.

All sourdough, refreshed twice, then mixed dough using a total of ~ 1 liter of water, total weight of dough was just over 2 kilo.  Baked on preheated stone at 400F with convection.

My first bread made with poolish.  It was excellent!! the crust was crackly and not hard the crumb was creamy and flavorful.  

One thing interesting is that bulk fermentation took 3 hours longer than what was recommended in FWSY