I actually put this together, meaning to for a while, after dmsnyder mentioned Suas's whole wheat. This is my first try at a truly 100% whole wheat bread and both Adam, my husband, and I think it's a keeper, but with one change: it needs more honey.

Soaker

• 200g whole wheat flour
• 115g white whole wheat flour
• 35g gluten flour
• 260g milk

Biga

• 200g whole wheat flour
• 150g water
• 5g instant yeast

Final Dough

• all of the soaker
• all of the biga
• 50g butter
• 55g honey (we think that 80g would have been better)
• 12g salt
• 25g milk

Method:

Put soaker ingredients together in a bowl and thoroughly combine. Set aside. Put biga ingredients together in a bowl and thoroughly combine. Place plastic wrap over both bowls and let alone for an hour or so. Mine went for a little over since I was feeding Alexander at the time.

To mix the final dough, break both the soaker and biga up into small pieces and place into the bowl of a stand mixer. Add all other ingredients and mix on low until everything is incorporated into the dough, then medium-low for 3-4 minutes until the dough no longer sticks to the sides of the bowl. Place in a bowl for bulk ferment.

During bulk ferment I did 2 letter stretch and folds. I don't really think I needed to as the dough seemed to be very elastic, but I wanted to be sure. Allow to double after the second stretch and fold if you decide to do it. Overall, the dough got a 2 hour ferment.

Cut into two pieces and shape into loaves. This worked for 1 loaf sandwich bread and about 4 rolls. Baked at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes, then went down to 325 for 10 minutes. I took the rolls out before turning the temperature down.

This is soft, light, and perfect for sandwiches. Both my husband and I like the fact that it isn't too heavy, yet it's 100% whole wheat. Considering the fact that none of my projects have been going completely right lately, this success (and one other that I'll mention on my other blog once I've figured it out *without* it being a slight accident) makes me feel good again.

Now I think I can tackle David's San Joaquin Sourdough. ;)

First up: the Failure.

They were completely sourdough, but something wasn't quite right. They got a bit too puffed. I'm thinking that the fact that I let the dough come back up to room temperature had something to do with that. I should've boiled straight from the fridge, then baked. It could also be that I didn't get them stretched out quite enough, either.

The taste, though? Perfect. Exactly what I want.

Second: the Success.

This is another basic sourdough rye. No caraway, no sugar...just flour, salt, water, and starter. No complaints. Time to get out the mustard. Or maybe the corned beef...

Just to show that I've been baking. Not neglecting my hobby this week. :)

This is what I get for trying a new starter.

This was not sour. I'd love to find out why. Write-up is here on my blog.

100g very ripe starter

944g flour

633g water

20g salt

Seriously, best tasting bread ever. At least to me. But it isn't sour. It's complex. Kinda nutty. But no tang at all.

I think my starter is more yeast than bacteria.

So here we are...baking again. Thank God. Seriously. Grocery store bread really does suck. Eating that crap through my entire pregnancy almost killed me. Since the bouncing baby boy is now sleeping a lot better than before, baking once again commences.

This was a riff on Eric's Fave Rye. I forgot the sugar and caraway so it isn't really right. I plan on making it again.

This was my final formula for my everyday, I-need-something-tasty-that-I-can-be-lazy-with bread. The write-up on my new and improved blog is on my new and improved blog.

Next up I'm hoping to tackle San Joaquin Sourdough and some bagels. All this week.

Maybe a little too ambitious?

I have a problem. Admitting that you have a problem is the first step to recovery, right?

So here I am, 7 weeks after giving birth to a wonderful baby boy...and I have 12 loaves of bread in various stages of becoming tasty, crusty goodness.

I am not a professional. I do not have one of those nice ovens that will fit all this bread. I have no couche for the insanely wet rosemary potato bread other than the piece of thin natural linen that I picked up at the fabric store for half off. I have to bake loaves 3 at a time, part of the time on a half sheet pan, so that they all get done at the right times.

The smell wafting through my house, though...heaven. Really. The smell of bread baking makes up for the hours of hard work I've put in over the last 24 hours.

Really, the hardest part was making the dough last night. My husband works second shift, meaning he's gone from about 2:30 until about midnight, so during the time I was mixing up doughs I had both kids to take care of, some laundry to do, dishes to keep up with, and dinner to make for Rinoa and I. Not only did I get everything done, but I figured I'd have time to do not only the baked potato and rosemary potato breads that I planned to take to Christmas as gifts, but also a loaf or two of real gingerbread to have with lightly sweetened whipped cream.

I think I've renewed my confidence in my ability to successfully multitask. I quit baking while I was pregnant because I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to spend enough time with my daughter after having the new baby and that she'd be forever scarred by my inability to play with her constantly. I can't believe I thought that now, but pregnancy does strange things to you. I now know that I can do my baking, which is something I do for myself as much as to provide my family with the best food possible, and still not neglect my family.

I have to admit that this crazy baking spree was most likely not the best way to reacquiant myself with my rational mind.

I'll share pictures when I'm done. Just thought I'd share my brain today. :)

The first is that I'm no longer pregnant. I actually gave birth to my baby boy on October 31st. :D

The second is that I'm baking again and I plan to continue doing so. I've missed home-baked bread after all the grocery store crap we've been eating lately due to me not feeling like baking. I have a new sourdough starter going, a loaf of white whole wheat bread in the fridge retarding until tomorrow, and tonight for supper I made pizza with a home made crust for the first time in almost 6 months. It's a good start, and I really hope to keep going this week with a couple of things: a rosemary potato bread and a cinnamon raisin oat bread. Making the potato bread, though, means I have to go outside and dig what's left of my rosemary out of the almost 2 feet of snow that my husband decided to pile on top of it.

The trials we bakers must go through to create our masterpieces.

It's good to be back. Now that I've spent some hours going through the blogs again, I do believe I have some inspiration for the weeks to come.

I made these last night.

Here's my blog post, plus the recipe.

In all honesty, the entire brownie baking night came about because I was bored and wanted something chocolate. The ranting about grocery store brownies was actually me being pissed at myself because I broke down and, instead of baking my much better tasting ones, bought some frosted ones at the store a few nights ago in a pregnancy-craving-induced spending spree.

I was inspired by David (dmsnyder) and his 5 hour baguettes. I needed a sandwich bread that was as lean as I could get it but was still very much soft crusted and soft of crumb. I've found it, I think, by slightly modifying the 5 hour baguette idea and adding one enrichment: olive oil.

Stephanie’s Simple Bread
Makes 1 small loaf

225g AP or bread flour
10g rye flour
15g white whole wheat flour
3/4 teaspoon instant yeast
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
170g water

Mix ingredients in the bowl for your stand mixer until you form a shaggy mass. Mix, on low, for 5 minutes, then increase speed to medium for 3 or 4 more. I left this in a clean bowl for 75 minutes for a first rise, folding at 25 and 50 minutes, and 60 minutes for a second rise. Shaped carefully and proofed for 40 minutes, scored, and spritzed with water. Baked for 30 minutes at 425 degrees.

I posted the recipe on my blog, too.

So thank you David. Thanks also have to go out to Susan of Wild Yeast for inspiration due to the fact that I was browsing the Wild Yeast Blog when I thought about how good a simple bread would be with the locally homemade ham salad I bought today.

So I'm planting my garden this year for the first time at this house. A couple years ago, while I was pregnant with Rinoa, I had a few tomato plants and a few pepper plants that didn't do too well because they were in an area with poor soil and way too much other stuff. This year I'm tilling up the backyard, finally, and doing things right.

I've noticed that, when I'm pregnant, I'm more prone to excess than when I'm not. I'm not saying that I'm not prone to it normally. Who isn't prone to going to excess at *something* now and again? Usually, though, it's just been too much bread. Easily taken care of when used to feed the birds. This time...things are slightly different.

I went to Wal-Mart. I hate Wal-Mart normally. I prefer buying my stuff at the local grocery store, but I do like going to Sam's Club occasionally...but that's beside the point.

I should get to the point.

I went into their garden section hoping to find a few tomato plants that I liked.

I came home that day with 28 tomato plants and 3 lonely zucchini. I then went to Hy-Vee, one local grocery store, and picked up 12 bell pepper plants and 4 more tomatoes, 4 little yellow squash seedlings. Gonna go back after they mark down some of the more expensive plants and get a few more bell peppers, some cukes, probably some acorn squash, sugar snap peas, and probably some carrots and green beans as well.

The real concern, though, is tomatoes. 32 plants. Add to that the fact that they'll produce right through until my first frost if I let them.

I think I'm going to need some sauce recipes, among other things.

I've thought of sauce (pizza and marinara), drying, canning whole and diced, salsa (I'll have to borrow some jalepenos from a friend). Can't think of anything else to do with them all. Even if you count only 5-6 pounds of tomatoes from each plant (which is conservative, I've heard, with the types I bought)...that's a lot of tomatoes. Canning time comes right around when I'll be 8 months pregnant, too. At least I feel good by then.

Anyone else know what to do with an overabundance of tomatoes? Of course there's giving them away or selling them, and I'm considering that, but first I want to think about what I can do to put them by. May as well get my money's worth.

There'll be a better write-up on my blog,
mentalexperimental.org, but I wanted to thank Floyd for a good starter recipe. I'm still working on modifying this one. I think that I have the general consistency of the bread down that I want, but I want a bit more tang. I think that there may have to be a sourdough component to really get it where I want it to be. But that's a completely new bread.

This is Floyd's recipe with a few modifications. The first is adding a bit more sour cream. The second was adding cheddar cheese instead of chives. The third is the addition of half & half in the dough and the mashed potatoes.

I think that getting a stand mixer will help me with this type of bread the most. I mixed for 8 or so minutes on speed 2 and then folded twice during the bulk fermentation, giving it an hour at the end to come to full bulk. The crumb is light, fluffy, and very tender.

I'm writing the recipe on the blog now. I wanted to share the photo because I'm so proud of how this one turned out. :)