This bread combines Larry's idea for kneading the cheese into the flour with my own practice of showering the top with parmigiano and then topping it with caramelized onion, which in turn came out of Silverton.

I mixed a dough of about 75% hydration using Central Milling flour. 100% starter made up about 20% of the formula by baker's percentage. I wanted a soft, white crumb, so I added some olive oil and some milk. I kneaded about a cup of finely grated cheddar into about 18 ounces of flour. This gave a very mild cheese flavor to the crumb. Twice as much cheese, or a more strongly flavored one would give more flavor.

Given the schedule this week, I fermented the dough in bulk overnight after folding it pretty aggressively in the first hour. This yielded a dough in the morning that was both wet and taught. 

I flattened out the dough and gave it two hours on the bench, which was about an hour less than it needed. This, with the milk and olive oil and cheese kneaded in, did no favors for the cell structure. I docked it all over with wet fingertips before loading. It baked at 450 degrees for about 20 minutes. I gave it another five minutes at 475 to darken it.

So, not a pizza, not a foccaccia, and not really a loaf of bread; sort of a bastard, but very well received by tasters. After all, everyone loves cheese and onions baked to brown and black.

This is really Hamelman's Vermont Sourdough, with buckwheat instead of rye. 

Working with buckwheat flour seems like the kitchen equivalent of very wet cement. I'd be inclined to be even more aggressive about folding, especially earlier in the bulk ferment, and I'd bake straight from cold, rather than leave the overnight-proofed boule out for an hour before baking, but all told, I'm pleased with the result. The buckwheat provides a very delicate texture that adds a certain elegance to the bread, and the taste is delectable.

Greetings. The crazy heat in my kitchen broke for long enough to allow me a few loaves for the holiday, although the heat was so great at times that my dough just died. After a long-awaited vacation coming up next week, I am looking forward to more reasonable conditions for baking when i return.

Anyway, Silverton's olive bread, which never disappoints. I've shown this before, but this time, instead of a single two kilo miche, I made half kilo loaves as gifts (and one, the batard, for toasts for the holiday dinner.) I'm showing them this time because I proofed the one in the front right in a floured towel in a fairly straight-sided mixing bowl. This yielded a much rounder loaf than the proofing baskets. The cell structure is exactly as desired and expected. I used twice as many olives as called for, a mixture of oil cured, kalamata and Sicilian green.

Glezer's sourdough challah. A bit tart, due to overproofing. You can see that the lobes of the four strand round braid have "melted" together some. breadsong's recent application of this form for Larry's cheese bread was much nicer. Nevertheless, a delicious, rich bread with an interior that is both soft and has some tooth. Needless to say, it made great french toast.

Looking to clear up the number of packages containing small amounts of flour, seeds, grains, etc., I noticed that Hamelman mentions in his description of one of his five grain loaves that it looks nice as a large boule. Having neither the time, the patience, nor, most important, the space in the fridge (I like these retarded overnight) I took him at his word and made up the loaf below. It contains at least three different kinds of seeds, all toasted, cracked rye, bulghur, steel cut oats, dark whole wheat, flax, flaxseed meal, who knows what else. It is really more like cereal baked with some flour and water into a loaf. 

Notwithstanding the mountain of ingredients I packed into this dough, it fermented and proofed nicely and baked up into a five pound (2 kilo+) loaf with fantastic taste. It's four inches high. Needless to say, wildly open crumb is not the goal here. 

In the oven, the loaf took a full hour to reach 200 degrees internal temperature, and about six or seven hours to be dry enough to cut. It was even then still a little ragged, as you can see.

This loaf is a meal in itself. A goodly slice, toasted and topped with butter is all you need. Except maybe another one. Delicious, if a little overwrought. Sorry, Jeff.

Forgive me. I have strayed from the unending pursuit of the platonic ideal in bread baking, and have had some fun. 

Silverton's formula for this bread includes some marjoram, which gives a nice perfume. I added some - a lot - of toasted wheat germ as well, which gives a nutty flavor and an added textural element. I've been adding toasted wheat germ to many of my loaves for years. It's a great ingredient. I also made the dough somewhat wetter than is specified. This, with the extra olive oil, made the dough a little tricky to handle, so out came the parchment and the rice flour.

This bread is especially striking in a large format. It is fun to tear apart.

Bonus pic: pita points with zatar and olive oil, which went with drinks for a dinner for the Jewish holiday of Shavuot:

I was inspired by a loaf made by breadmakingbassplayer that sounded very good. I began by calculating a 75% hydration dough. With the water content from the scallions, and the addition of some sesame oil, I'm not sure how much higher than that it wound up. Parchment paper and rice flour are your friends in a case like this.

The levain was about 12% of the total weight of the dough. I bulk fermented the dough for three hours, probably too long at almost 80F, with a set of about 20 strokes in the bowl every hour. I proofed the loaf for about 45 minutes, as the kitchen was heating up from the oven. 

Unmolded onto a piece of parchment covered with sifted rice flour. To form, lifted from the bottom four times, turning the loaf a quarter turn each time, sort of like a kaiser roll. I like the shape.

Baked covered for the first ten minutes. 

The sesame oil adds even more richness to the sourdough. The scallions make the whole thing very onion-y. The crumb is soft but resilient. The crust is somewhat crumbly. Very full flavored and delicious. I had some as a tuna fish sandwich last night.

The crumb looked like this throughout. However, as the result of the forming motion on the rice flour-covered parchment, a small seam of uncooked flour turned up here and there, which is not attractive for photos.

I don't know what I am doing hanging around a culinary activity that largely demands, and attracts, precision-oriented individuals and the sort of methodical, careful procedures that lend themselves to notekeeping. I am a right side person. I don't keep records of my bakes. I do measure my ingredients by weight but I often make arithmetic mistakes. I fail to take account of variations in temperature and humidity in my apartment. I share the drive for self improvement in baking, but I don't crave the utter perfection of some, unless it comes through my hands and experiential learning, rather than through scientific or quasi scientific trial.

I envy those with stable environmental conditions. I'm amazed by professional bakeries, which have their procedures right down to the number of revolutions of the mixer. But being a right side type, variation more than consistency inhabits my home bakery. I've learned to accept it.

Take Nancy Silverton's walnut bread, the best walnut bread I've ever had anywhere, by a mile. I've been baking it since the book was published and it usually turns out more or less the same. Yesterday, though, the dough wanted a good deal more water, and the dark rye flour seemed, somehow, to make up more of the dough than usual. For scheduling reasons, fermentation and proofing went on longer than they should have. Not by much, but by enough to make a difference. By the same token, Silverton calls for a fairly intensive mix, so taken all together, this is a loaf with a relatively close crumb, albeit one in which the cell structure should be evident throughout.

This is one the best specialty breads I've come across. The taste is very rich and complex, creamy and deep. The crust shatters all over the place. It's great out of hand, but it is spectacular with cheese. Highly recommended, even if you are a right sider, like me.

From the last bake, all dressed up and ready to be consumed:

My wife returned from Israel with some beautiful zatar. The word describes both an herb as well as an herb blend. She brought both, from a spice dealer in her home town, where her family has been living for about two hundred years. The spice dealer has been there about as long. The blend varies from place to place and typically, people argue over their preferences. Most of the blends have the zatar, thyme, sesame. This one has lemon salt as well. It's just a great herbal condiment.

Zatar calls for flatbread, although it's great on grilled meat, for example, especially chicken, and with Lebanese yoghurt.

So, some pitot, barely visible on the left, and the much more challenging carta di musica, also known as Pane Carasau in Sardinia. In this case, the instructions using volume directions that I located were way off for my conditions, so I mixed it up to approximate a dough in the low to mid 60's hydration. I used a combination of ap and semolina flour and some olive oil. I used a little commercial yeast, although I'm sure this isn't necessary. I hydtated a portion of the flour and water and a little yeast overnight before making up the dough, a sort of biga for flavor, as the dough goes very fast the next day with the commercial yeast.

These are rolled out very thin. An intensive mix helps with dough strength. Once on the stones in the oven, they should puff like pita, but much, much thinner. They are taken out at this point, separated into the two halves, and thrown back on the stones to crisp up and brown.

Fun to make and eat, if a little tricky. 

It seems as if there is no end to the riches of this website. I'm learning things about German breads that will keep me busy for years. Who knew?

Still looking to use up the buckwheat flour I've had around for a while, Karin's loaf looked and sounded awfully good. I made a couple of changes to suit my taste and method, but this is Karin's bread and it is one of the tastiest I've ever baked. The buckwheat and rye, balanced with a little sweetness and spice, is just unbeatable. Recipients gobbled it up right in front of me, not even waiting to take it home.

I eliminated the yeast, only because I am stubborn. To compensate, I increased fermentation and proofing times a little. I used dark rye flour because that's what I had. I used barley malt syrup instead of honey because I'm not crazy for honey in my bread. I cut the anise down to a smidgen, added some ground fennel along with the cardamom. This spice mixture stays nicely in the background, where it is a real contributor without being distinguishable on its own.

I baked it as one loaf about a kilo pre baked weight, with every kind of steam I could think of. It took 35 minutes to finish after 15 minutes of steam.

Not just a keeper, but one to work into the more regular rotation. Thanks, Karin, for the beautiful example, the inspiration, and the lesson.