Thanks to both Mr. DiMuzio and bblearner's input, I made my first pain de mie successfully.   This loaf was made with 20% pre-ferment maintained at 50% hydration. To add a bit of Japanese touch to the loaf,  3% flour and 17% water was used to make water roux starter. Honey was used in place of sugar.  The rest were milk, milk powder, butter and etc., pretty typical ingredients.

As Mr. DiMuzio mentioned, this sourdough sandwich loaf is more compact than the yeasted version loaves and has more substance (bigger dough size) and is slightly chewier in texture.    It is a nice loaf of milky savory bread with a very subtle hint of tang. 

My kids were fascinated with the square shape and called it the loaf with no 'butt' (as compared to the dome-shaped loaves I made before).  They've enjoyed it without butter and have already requested another loaf.

The kneading was done completely by my Zojirushi and no folds by hand.  I adopted Mr. DiMuzio's procedures to utilize the fridge to both bulk ferment and proof.  The loaf was done with minimal dough-sitting, which was my ultimate goal.   I'd also applied the same procedures in my nut-and-fruit bread and it turned out great as well.  Thank you again, Mr. DiMuzio.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/33569048@N05/sets/72157622439989640/

This bread was made with 40% levain and is a variation of Mr. DiMuzio's double raisin walnut bread. I used a 3-build firm starter of 50% hydration and adjusted the formula to Mr. DiMuzio's percentages.  The 75% nuts and passion fruits medley have made this bread very colorful and attractive.  It is a bit chewy and has a medium-mild sourdough taste.

I utilized my Zojirushi to knead the dough for ten minutes and gave it a few folds afterwards before bulk fermenting it in the fridge overnight.  Before shaping, nuts and fruits were folded in.  Shaped dough was proofed in fridge overnight. Steamed and baked at 460F for 40 minutes. 

 http://www.flickr.com/photos/33569048@N05/sets/72157622439976366/

This was the most difficult formula I've encountered.  I'm somewhat discouraged by the outcomes of my breads.  Even though I've tried it twice, I still didn't get that confident feeling I normally have with my dough. 

In this trial, I used all the 10% rye flour to make a water roux starter.  The reason that prompted me to use a roux starter was that, even though at a lower % of rye (10%) flour than my 090602 sourdough rye (20%) bread , the dough in my first trial of this formula , at which I used KA organic AP flour and no rye roux, turned out to be much messier and the crumb was very gummy.   Without going through the heating process of making a roux starter, the amylases, which contribute to the gumminess in rye dough, remain actively alive.  The combination of lower gluten flour (AP) and the presence of lively amylases, I believe, was the culprit to the failure of my first attempt. 

In my second experiment, in addition to the rye roux starter, I also sustituted AP with bread flour.  I made baguette and batard so that I could practice different forms of scoring.  The crust was very crackly and the taste was good. However, I did not get as much oven spring as I'd hoped for.  Well, I can always give it another try.  We'll see.  

http://www.flickr.com/photos/33569048@N05/sets/72157621430357953/

A big thank you to Susan for this simple and delicious formula.  My kids loved these loaves tremendously.  They had it for breakfast with a spread of butter; at dinner clam chowder in a bread bowl.  For me, it's another great lesson in sourdough.  A few new things I tried in this project: 

1. Baking with high gluten flour (Giusto's organic high gluten whole wheat)
2. Using a firm starter (refreshed at 1:2:3)
3. Experimenting EXTENDED retardation at bulk fermentation (12 days) and at final proof (2 days).  There was no basis of practicing these extended retardations, I simply just did not have a chance tending the dough after I mixed it up. It gave me an opportunity to find out how well the method of preserving a premixed dough in the fridge for later use, as suggested in AB in 5, would work. As you will see, there's no negative impact on the final product and the flavor was greatly enhanced.

This project turned out wonderfully.  Susan, I'm looking forward to trying your bread again.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/33569048@N05/sets/72157621242247616/

This will be submitted to Nick's imafoodblog.

There must be a more proper name for this loaf, but it looks like a brick and feels like a brick, so I named it 'brick bread'.  The idea came from a loaf I once tried out of curiosity.  There was a night-and-day difference between that loaf and the fluffy, buttery Hong Kong /Japanese style breads I grew up with, but its texture was certainly interesting.  I'd been contemplating making it but was not able to find a formula either here at the forum or online.  Therefore, I decided to make it up myself after researching the basic properties of rye flour and using the ingredients on the package as a guideline.

My loaf consists of 60% rye flour, 40% high gluten whole wheat flour.  The loaf I had was a yeasted formula and was made with far more variety of flours, seeds and grains but I decided to simplify the ingredients in my first trial.  It has only walnuts, raisins and topped with sesame seeds.

I activated my dormant rye starter and put it to use.  In order to test its vitality, no commercial yeast was used this time. 

I arbitrarily picked an 88% hydration (to Cantonese, 88 is also a lucky number), hoping that this will soak up the pentosans and they wouldn't interfere with the gluten development as much. Even so, the dough was still sticky and a bit messy to handle. I made a sponge overnight and mixed with the rest of the flours the following day.  A few attempts of stretch and folds didn't seem to lead to anything promising, so I gave up.  I folded in the nuts and raisins at the end.

The dough rose to about 65% of its original height after a few hours, I wasn't sure whether it was ready but I surely didn't want to overproof, so I put it in a 460F oven for 40 minutes.  Internal temperature measured 213F when it came out.

I waited 24 hours before slicing the bread and took pictures of the crumb at 48 hours as well.  The tangy taste continues to improve as time goes by.  It does not taste like brick and has not cracked my teeth.  The nuts have created a light texture similar to that of banana bread, but without the fatty ingredients.  It is a loaf I'll re-try, just to make it perfect. If you have a formula for something similar to this loaf, please kindly share it so that I won't be so clueless and have some directions to follow next time.

Here are the pictures:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/33569048@N05/sets/72157621140385262/

I must confess this loaf is a mistake, but it is also the best sandwich loaf I've made so far.  It's fluffy, springy, and moist and 'pillowy' to touch; and it's wholesome - made with 100% white whole wheat.  Basically it has everything I've dreamed for in a sandwich loaf. 

It's an old formula adapted from a friend's home recipe, which originally calls for 64% hydration.  However, I did experiment with something new this time: the double hydration mixing technique, in which part of the liquid called for is reserved and added to the dough gradually in small increments after gluten has well developed initially through kneading.  

As I converted the original recipe into a formula using water roux starter, I forgot to account for the liquid component in the starter and accidentally added more liquid than I should.  This pushed the hydration of the dough up to 79%.  If I had not applied the double hydration technique, I may not have been able to incorporate all the liquid into the dough without ruining it.

This loaf turned out surprisingly good, since I did not realize in the first place my alteration to the formula. Now it has been four days, it still shows no signs of drying.  It springs right back when I bite into it and it still tastes very good without toasting.

This unexpected outcome has made me wonder if we up the hydration of our dough to the highest point it can withstand, will this produce a more fluffy loaf with extended shelf life?  Or other factors may kick in to interfere? Well, this question is too complex for a beginner to figure out.  Maybe you have the answer to it?

Here's my 'mistake':

http://www.flickr.com/photos/33569048@N05/sets/72157620566684609/

090709 follow up:

I tried 70% hydration, still moist afte 3 days, but starting to show some signs of drying.

will experiment with 75% hydration next.    

This will be submitted to Wild Yeast Yeastspotting! 

I'm very happy to have worked out this recipe, not only because I am adding a new variety to the many existing recipes using sourdough starter discard, but it has also brought back a lot of fond memories from my childhood.

Egg puffs were one of my favorite after-school snacks that I picked up from a street hawker outside my elementary school.  Those freshly made egg puffs had soothed and warmed my rumbling stomach at winter dusk-I was in the PM section of my elementary school.

To make egg puffs, a thin batter of eggs, sugar, and evaporated milk is prepared. A two-piece egg puff iron is needed to produce these hollow, crispy egg-shaped waffles, giving them the Cantonese name that literally means 'little eggs'.  Street hawkers heat their irons on charcoal stoves, which are much more powerful than my electric stove at home. 

Street hawkers also use the same batter to make 'grid biscuits', which are very similar to waffles.  They are round in shape and have four quadrants.  These biscuits are usually served with a spread of butter and peanut butter and sprinkled with sugar on top. Therefore, if you dont' have an egg puff iron at home, you may try this recipe with a regular waffle maker.

Even though I'm thousands of miles away from my hometown across the Pacific, distance, thanks to these 'little eggs', only makes the heart grow fonder.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/33569048@N05/sets/72157620248658035/

 A non-starter version recipe:

This will be submitted to Wild Yeast Yeastspotting!

I'm grateful to the people here who have helped me advance in my bread making techniques.  I want to share my joy of success with them and the rest of the community. Even though my projects are not perfect, I've always made progress. Given time and practice, they will continue to improve in the future.

In this project, credit must go to dmsnyder (David), for his thorough write-up of the formula here and instruction/illustration on scoring; to MC, for her detailed explanation and encouragement on shaping; and to SteveB, for his video demonstration which makes the baguette shaping process vividly clear. 

I followed the Anis Bouabsa's baguette formula posted by David almost to the letter, except for the retardation part.  This dough had been given a cold shoulder in the fridge for six days.  Therefore, a hint of sourdough flavor has developed.  It lost its priority on my to-do list due to my hubby's recent grumbling about dwindling variety of good foods in the house since I started baking bread a few months ago.  "Bread again?" has been a frequent moaning I hear lately.  Therefore, I have diverted most of my energy and focus back to cooking in the last week or two, to appease all the 'hungry' mouths in the house.

And here's the link to my latest creation:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/33569048@N05/sets/72157619796084657/

I've seen many TFL members' creations posted on YeastSpotting! and I think I'm going to give it a try this time.

This is my first baking project using rye flour.  It is a sourdough bread made with 20% rye flour, which was all used to make the water roux starter.  There are three objectives of this project:

1. Practicing scoring techniques learned from David, in preparation for making his high hydration baguettes.
2. Testing the vitality of my starter which was fed differently than before. This starter was immediately returned to the fridge after given  a 1:2:2 feeding.  I wanted to compare the activities of this starter to the ones that were refreshed several times.  
3. Observing the effects of water roux starter in artisan breads.

I made three slashes, two according to David's instructions and the last one as a control and was done by the way that I'd been doing before.  The results were dramatically different.  The ones done following David's method were the pretty ones that I've always been envious of.

My starters performed similarly even though they were fed differently.  By adopting the 'immediately back to the fridge' methodology, I will be relieved of the workload of feeding and minimizing waste of flours. 

This crumb was softer and less chewy compared to the boules I've made.  Breads made with water roux starter normally have a longer keeping time. However, this feature has become less important as I have frozen my breads as soon as they cool.

 http://www.flickr.com/photos/33569048@N05/sets/72157619157537516/

The ‘force’ was very strong this weekend, because I had the blessings from Susan of San Diego.    It was so strong that I could feel it as soon as the bouncy boule-shaped dough rolled out of my palm after one of its many S&Fs. From that moment, I knew I was going to make it.  Here it is, and Susan, I’m forever grateful to you!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/33569048@N05/sets/72157618730642157/