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Spring is here... soon it will be too warm to use the large indoor oven. It's the season for min-ovens (MO) and bread machines (BM) to be used more frequently, often set up out on the porch.

Over the last year or so I've tested dozens of BM's, looking for the ones that do the best job at mixing/kneading, fermenting/proofing, and baking. This thread is about the baking part.

I haven’t done this style of bread in sometime, I found a package of freeze dried strawberries in the back of a cupboard so it inspired me to use it.  Matcha and strawberries are great together.  Although I have made this style of bread before, I’d never done with with my mochi formula which uses sweet rice flour as the tangzhong.

I last made these around the holidays and wanted to make them again based on comments I received.  Essentially there wasn’t quite enough ginger in them, the cinnamon was dominant the first time.  I fix that I’ve increase the ginger by 50% and based on comments from people who ate them, I think I’ve got that right now.

Here is a copy of a Baker's Percentage spreadsheet I developed.   I have included a blank version and a copy of my Country Loaf Recipe.

Baker's Percentage Spreadsheet

Sourdough Country Loaf

thank you all for taking the time to read this lengthy post and any feedback is very much appreciated.

As I had posted in reply to cfraenkel, this Easter I tried  to make a Greek sweet Easter bread that has eluded me so far in terms of a successful bake. 

They haven't been a disaster, but also not what I had tried and liked so much. 

I pretty much have this one down pat. I am now working on an unfed l, overnight room temperature ferment style.

It's the early bird that catches the worm.

Bake off protocol initiated.

1. Preheat sequence - T Minus 30 minutes to completion.

2. Pre bake visual fermentation inspection ✅

95-100% of full fermentation achieved. 

3. The flip ✅

4. The Slash ✅

5. The Load ✅

6. Initiate steam injection ✅

Now we wait...

My goodness, how good fresh bread smells in the morning!

Hey everyone,

I've posted another recipe on my website, this time for a pocket-style barley bread we have in Egypt. This one was slightly challenging to produce a full pocket with barley flour since it doesn't contribute any gluten. Pocket formation seems to depend on a strong gluten network and I managed to get enough strength in the dough by using 50% wheat and 50% barley while pushing my oven to its maximum temperature.

Check out the recipe here: Egyptian barley bread recipe

My second go at this bread that uses sweet rice flour (aka glutinous rice flour) in the tangzhong.  Read my previous blog post for details as to why this type of rice flour is especially good as a tangzhong and prolonging the freshness of bread.  You’ll recall that this rice flour is also used to make mochi, which I have made before and it also delicious so it is a good thing to have around if you like Asian treats.

Sometimes you get the bear.  Yes, really.  After a number of recent thoroughly edible but not very interesting bakes, I finally have one that gets me excited.

Sure, I could have let the final ferment go a bit longer but ... I'm getting ahead of myself.