Here's my first loaf using Bay State Milling's Bouncer. (Premium high gluten flour made from the finest high-protein spring wheat.) Smiling nicely, isn't it?

Dough made with this flour felt softer than with the GM All Trumps I've been using, and less stretchy. I was worried that my usual 70% hydration would be too high, but I don't think it was. The crust seemed a bit thicker and, boy, did it sing when it came out of the oven!

There was no real reason to switch from All Trumps to Bouncer; I just wanted to try out different flours.

Thanks for looking!

Today I baked the sourdough bread I've been looking for ever since starting this odyssey. It has a crispy crust and a stretchy, holey crumb. And it's easy. As I told a couple of friends earlier, "...it's reproducible, if the weather stays exactly how it is today."

I'm not suggesting that this could be anyone else's ultimate sourdough, but it sure is mine, at least for right now. Thanks to all who have helped me over the past year or so, even unwittingly. It continues to be great fun. The recipe is below.

Susan's Ultimate Sourdough

Starter is made the way Peter Reinhart suggested to us in class: 1:3:4 (starter:water:flour)

A single small boule, made by hand:

12g starter

175g water

25g whole wheat flour

225g hi-gluten flour (All Trumps, to be exact)

5g salt (I use Kosher)

Mix starter and water, mix in flour. Rest a few minutes, then re-mix. Dump into a greased bowl, let rise until doubled, about 8 hours. Turn the very soft dough onto your counter and pat it out, then sprinkle salt over the top. Roll it up, then gently knead a few times to distribute the salt. Let relax. Do the following until the dough is hard to fold: round up, let the dough relax, stretch and fold. Round up, let relax, shape, and put it in a banneton for proofing 3-4 hours in a warm spot.

The oven was preheated for 30 minutes at 500F, and reduced to 450F after I put the loaf in. It was baked on a tray, covered, for 18 minutes. The cover was then removed and the loaf baked until dark brown, about another 8 minutes.

Thanks, Norm, for this recipe. Boy, are these good! This is the first recipe in a long time that tempted me to stray from straight sourdough!

I think I should have used convection for the last half of baking. And I should probably smush them down more and give them a bit more room on the sides next time.

You can see that I started out with 15 two-ounce rolls and now have only eight left, and they just came out of the oven! Mmmmmmm.

Susan from San Diego

Half-baked Onion Rolls

Norm's Onion Rolls

Here's the link to Norm's recipe: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/6245/another-one-norm-onion-rolls#comment-31799

One-day, 100g starter

Sponge-based, 50g starter