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I usually bake on a baking stone in a convection oven with mixed results.. Over the last few months I have managed some consistency and although the bread was good I never quite achieved what I wanted. So the other day I came across an old dutch oven in the back of my Mum's kitchen cupboard and borrowed it for a trial run.... I can safely say this is easily the best loaf I have ever made, the Dutch oven changed my bread in every single way... rise, crust, texture, taste.

Fried up these donuts for a brunch and filled them with a citrus curd made using blood oranges and rose water!

Recipe: 

Levain: 

110g bread flour

35g starter 

15g honey

60g water

Dough: 

500g bread flour

2 eggs

70g sugar

15g salt

130g milk

15g diastatic malt (optional)

all of the levain

130g butter 

1 tbsp vanilla extract

----

Filling: 

1 cup sugar

8 egg yolks

20g corn starch

This week's bake was Trevor Wilson's Tartine Style Country Bread, along with a basic white to use up levain.

Monday 3 pm refresh starter 5 g + 10 g water + 15 g flour. mix and leave on bench. room temperature 26 deg Celcius

Monday 8:30 pm added 30 g water and 30 g flour. room temperature now 23 deg C. Leave overnight on bench

Tuesday 8:45 am add 45 g water + 45 g flour.  Room temperature back to 23 deg C,  Not a standard build, just wanted to keep it going till after lunch

Formula Tartine Style Country Bread

Lucy saw some Hokkaido Milk Bread yeast rolls posted last week that were based on Floyd’s great recipe.  I said at the time we would see if we could make this bread the traditional Japanese way with yeast water and a Lucy twist with her turn.

Due to long class hours, my lunch of rice and a viand cannot sustain me until dinner or until I get home. Halfway through the class after lunch, I am already starting to feel drained and lethargic and starting lose focus. Since bagels are a recent favorite and I know how satisfying and filling they are, I baked some to serve as an afternoon snack to fuel me and give some badly needed energy. :)

My first blog entry!

I have been wanting to bake my version of dmsnyder's excellent bread.  I prepared and baked as below, and I am delighted with the result.

I started with my usual 2 loaf sourdough recipe, adjusted the flours and add-in to match dmsnyder's recipe.:

Day 1: 10:00 pm

Prepare levain:

I found pul's bread and was hooked! but persimmon??? ok, I got no persimmon but my wife got fresh kaki and I dryed them cut into wedges. so I have pieces of wedges in the bread and no cubes! never mind! ;-)

this bread is absolut gorgeous!

the loaf shaped as boule

Abel Sierra posted another in his series of fascinating outside-of-the-box things that one can do with just Flour Water and Salt two weeks ago.  And I am indeed fascinated at the breadth of what one can do creatively with just these three ingredients.   And that also meant another that I would warehouse until the time came.  Which was now!

I had bit and pieces of dried fruit leftover from the holidays and I also had some local made grain free spiced granola that I had bought at the farmer’s market. The granola was rather expensive and there wasn’t a lot of it so I added the dried fruit and toasted groats to boost the volume of the add-ins.