This past weekend was big for our household - July 30th is my birthday and our 5th anniversary, July 31st is my husband's birthday, lots to celebrate. Made some baguettes and the following Polish Cottage Rye from "Local Breads"

This bread has been well documented and recommended on TFL, see here for formula.

I don't know why I waited so long to make this one, it definitely lives up to the hype. The rye flavor is surprisingly noticable even though there aren't that much rye flour in the dough.

Even with the long kneading (13 mins!), the crumb is surprisingly open, I guess the high hydration made up for intensive mixing.

With such dark and crackly crust, it's big and beautiful 

I will join others to highly recommend this bread!

For our 5th wedding anniversary (year of "wood"), I made Yule Log cake, with chocolate swiss roll + chestnut cream filling + cream cheese chocolate frosting, yum!

Love the cute meringue mushrooms

Hey, it's all about the details, I don't feel guilty carving this tree!

For DH's part, he gave me hand-made tree leaf bookmarks and card, with patterns he designed himself. He used peach tree leaves for their natural heart shape.

Also gave me an anniversary ring, with 5 diamonds. Designed the ring himself. to match the wedding band and engagement ring.

All around a great weekend, we spoiled each other silly. I found time for a birthday run as well, with my trusty running partner! This is after a 15 miler long run, it was hell-ishly hot. Trust me, you don't want to know the temperature.

The request for a good Challah recipe that was not sourdough had me posting my recipe that I have used since the 70's. I haven't been making it weekly as I did for decades since I have been working with wild yeast and have been exploring artisinal breads and formulas. It felt wonderful to have my hands in the dough and to knead and develop with only 10 min. of effort. None of the 3 days that I have been spending lately with a minute or 2 here and there. Different but nice in its own way also.  Crumb later when it cools. c 

This is a 50% spelt Sourdough I made up, adapting the formula from Hamelman's Mich callier stiff levain:

Levain: 275g @ 65% hydration fed with (40% seplt, and 60% AP)

Final Dough:  - 505g water

                   - 720g Flour (50%AP, 50% WHole SPelt Flour)

                   - 30g (1T) Sea salt.

                   - All Levain (275g)

                   -----------------

                   1500g dough @ 70% Hydration

Baking day: I dissolved the stiff levain in 505g water, then added the 720g Flour. Left to Autolize for 30 min, then salt went into the dough. I french-Kneaded  the dough for 10 min. let rest for 5-10 minutes, then french-kneaded for anoth 5 minutes, and shaped to a tight boule.

Fermenation 2.5 Hours with 2 folds. I then divided the dough into 750g doughs, preshapd gently, and then shaped after an hour. Final fermentation for 2 Hours, and into a hot 500F oven reduced to 430F with steam for 15 minutes, 30 min utes without steam.

Taste was very pleasent: typical of mild sourdoughs, with nutty aftertaste from spelt. Versatile for spreads, or even alone!

Khalid