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Every time I venture to Whole Foods I manage to find something interesting to add to my bread baking and last weekend was no exception.  I was already planning on making bread with some fresh chopped cherries so when I saw some 100% Cherry Juice on the shelf I couldn't resist buying it and using it in place of most of the water.

I recently also bought some Red Quinoa so I decided  to make a soaker by using the Quinoa and also adding some Organic Oat Bran.  I used around 2 cups of boiling water (sorry but I forgot to measure) and added that to the soaker ingredients and let it sit for about 1 hour.  Beware that this combination of grains will absorb most of the liquid and it caused me to up the amount of flour in the recipe to compensate.  Even with the added flour this is a very wet dough.  If you don't count the soaker ingredients it is 69.5% hydration which doesn't take into consideration the amount of liquid absorbed by the soaker.  If you include the soaker ingredients as flour it comes in at 59% but trust me this is a wet dough.

I also used some White Whole Wheat Flour, French Style Flour (low protein flour good for baguettes) and some Spelt.

The cherries were fresh cherries with the pits removed and chopped into small pieces.  If you like bigger pieces please feel free to follow your hearts or stomach's desires.

The addition of the Cherry Juice and chopped cherries I thought would give the final bread a very distinctive cherry flavor but in actuality you don't really taste the cherry juice at all.  You definitely see it in the reddish color and the Red Quinoa also adds a nice nutty flavor and red tint to the bread.

The dough may have over-risen slightly since it was warmer in my kitchen than usual and I was zonked after cooking a pork butt and brisket since 7:00AM in the morning and I didn't pay attention as closely as I usually do.  The bread flattened out a bit when putting it in the oven but had some excellent oven spring.

The crust is nice and crispy and the crumb is incredibly moist and open.  The final product tastes amazing for a multi-grain bread and is nutty and sweet and earthy tasting.  The cherries are not overpowering at all but add along with the cherry juice a nice depth to this bake.

Procedure

For the starter, I refreshed my standard AP white starter the night before and used most of it in this bake.  I have also included the ingredients to make the exact amount of starter needed from your seed starter.  Mine is kept at 65% hydration so adjust yours accordingly.

Soaker

100 grams Red Quinoa

50 grams Organic Oat Bran

335 grams Boiling Water  (It may have been less so use your judgment and adjust accordingly)

Mix boiling water in a bowl with other ingredients and let sit covered at room temperature for 1 hour or longer.

Starter

71 grams Seed (Mine is 65% AP Flour Starter)

227 grams AP Flour

151 grams Water (85 - 90 degrees F.)

Mix seed with water to break up for a few seconds and then mix in flour until the starter form a smooth dough consistency.  Put it in a lightly oiled bowl and loosely cover and leave at room temperature for at least 10 hours.  The starter should double in volume.  Put the starter in the refrigerator for up to 1-2 days or use it immediately.

Main Dough

Ingredients

425 grams Starter from above (all of the starter)

300 grams French Style Flour (KAF)

195 grams White Whole Wheat Flour (KAF)

70 grams Spelt Flour

40 grams Chopped, Pitted Fresh Cherries (frozen would work fine if not in season)

200 grams Cherry Juice at room temperature (100% Juice with no sugar added)

200 grams Water (85 - 90 degrees F.)

18 grams Sea Salt (or table salt)

Procedure

Mix the liquids with the levain and break it up with your hands or a spoon.    Next add the flours and mix on low for 2 minutes.  Let the dough rest for 25 minutes and then add the soaker and the salt and mix on low for 3 minutes.  Add the chopped cherries and mix on low for 1 additional minute.  Transfer the dough to your work surface.  Resist the urge to add too much bench flour (I didn't add any) and use a bench scraper to do about 5-6 stretch and folds.  Put the dough into a lightly oiled container/bowl and let it sit for 15 minutes.  Do another stretch and fold in the bowl.  Cover the bowl and let it sit for another 15-20 minutes.  Do this 2 additional times waiting about 15 minutes between S&F's.  By the last S&F the dough should start developing some gluten strength.  Let the dough sit out at room temperature for around 1.5 to 2 hours.  Do one last stretch and fold and put in your refrigerator overnight for 12-24 hours.

The next day take the dough out of the refrigerator and let it sit out at room temperature for 1.5 hours.  After 1.5 hours you can form it into loaves and put them in floured bannetons and let them rise covered for 2 hours (note: make sure to watch the dough and depending on the temperature of your kitchen and the refrigerator adjust your timing as needed).

Score the loaves as desired and prepare your oven for baking with steam.  I use a heavy-duty baking sheet on the bottom rung of my oven and I pour 1 cup of boiling water into the pan as soon as I load the loaves in the oven.  Pre-heat your oven to 500 degrees F. before placing the loaves in the oven.

Once the loaves are loaded onto your baking stone and you add your steam turn the oven down to 450 degrees and bake until both loaves are golden brown and reach an internal temperature of 200 - 210 degrees F.  For an extra crispy crust once done baking turn the oven off and crack the door and leave the loaves in the oven for another 10-15 minutes.  Once done place on a wire cooling rack and resist the temptation to cut the bread until they are sufficiently cooled.

I hope you give this recipe a try and be sure to let me know how it turns out if you do.

I made an enormous ciabatta weighing nearly 1 kilo. I used an 18hr-fermented biga starter and a combination of medium and weak flours. This thing was massive!

Biga:
400g '00' flour from Shipton Mill
160g cold water
1.3g Instant yeast

Final dough:
Fermented biga
320g cold water
200g plain flour (9.4% protein)
24g Extra virgin olive oil
12g Non-diastatic malt powder
12g Salt
2g diastatic malt powder 

olive oil for S&f.

Method:
To make the biga, first weigh all the ingredients. Put flour and yeast in the mixing bowl and turn on the mixer adding water gradually to form breadcrumbs and let run until you get a dry dough. Roll out the dough and fold up. Cover and leave overnight at cool room temperature for 18hrs.

Next day weigh all ingredients and cut the biga into pieces. Mix biga and 150g of water until combined. Then add flour, malts, salt and mix adding the rest of the water in stages. Once the dough begins to clean the mixing bowl add the olive oil and finish the mix to achieve a satin-smooth, slightly sticky dough.

Place dough in a well oiled flat and wide container. Cover and rest. Stretch and fold the dough at 20 minute intervals until the dough almost doubles in size. Rest for 20 minutes before shaping business letter style. Roll shaped dough in flour, give it a final dust of flour and leave to proof until doubled in size. Stone-bake with steam.

I had to shape and proof the dough very carefully being so huge already and not having a very big oven, stone or proofing tray/peel.

Baked ciabatta dimensions: 15"x9"x4.5".

Crumb - open and very, very light.

 

Probably one of the best ciabatta's I ever made. Subtle and moreish in flavour. Perfectly chewy and shreadable in texture.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__FwAfWl1Cc&list=UUKhVduFt-2pU5O8XcRKKTIQ&index=1&feature=plcp

 First, the starter story, aka I never thought it could happen to me.  My starter has been serving me well for a couple of years.  It would get sluggish from time to time when I wasn’t giving it enough attention but it always bounced back after a couple of feedings.  Then one week it didn’t bounce back.  It failed to raise the starter I was building for that week’s bread and then failed to raise the bread.  I’ve never had a loaf just completely fail to rise like that so the following week I gave the starter some extra feedings and expected it to bounce back as usual.  Except that, once again, it didn’t.  I made my build for the week’s bread anyway and it behaved the same as it had the previous week.  I didn’t want to throw it out so I spiked the final dough with instant yeast and went ahead with the bread. 

 At this point I had to admit that I had a serious problem so I set out to revive my starter.  It has always been fed whole wheat flour and kept at around 75% hydration.  Feedings happened 2-4 times per week and its downtime was spent in the refrigerator.  But something was very much off.  I tried more feedings in the proofer, I tried small inoculations, I tried high hydration, I tried a fresh bag of flour, but the result was always the same: a few bubbles, a little expansion, but ultimately a slack, sticky dough that smelled distinctly of freshly cut grass.  Some people like the smell of freshly cut grass – I am not one of those people.  I don’t like the smell of freshly cut grass when it’s coming from freshly cut grass and I really don’t like it when it’s coming from my starter.  Along with this new smell I noticed the complete absence of the old, acidic smell. 

 At first I took comfort in the fact that at least I was getting a consistent result.  That’s better than having my starter go into a full death spiral, right?  Then I got to thinking about the biology of it all (at least the bit I’ve managed to pick-up from hanging out around here) and came to the conclusion that my new and consistent result was not such an encouraging sign after all.  What does it mean when the acidity appears to be gone, there’s a new smell, and I get the same result no matter how I feed it?  Sounds like my starter environment has changed and it’s making some new critters very happy.  Drat! 

 I couldn’t bring myself to start over completely but I came close (maybe I even did, who knows). I scooped the old starter out of its container and left what was stuck to the bottom where it was.  I made a small amount of thick batter from those remains, whole wheat flour and pineapple juice to create an acidic environment that would make the good guys happy and the bad guys go live somewhere else.  When the batter was bubbly (about 12 hrs later) I repeated the treatment.  When that was nice and bubbly I switched back to water and kept feeding it about every 12 hours, gradually bringing the hydration and inoculation percentages down.  A few days later there was the old smell!  Wonderfully sour and fruity!  What a relief!  And, best of all, it is once again doing a very nice job of raising my breads

 All this would be for nothing if I didn’t learn something along the way.  I think I did.  I think I got a little too casual with my trusty starter.  Somehow I got into the habit of using smaller inoculations when feeding and that, combined with a lazy habit of cutting short the fermentation time, led to a shift in the population and then a shift in the environment.  This may have opened the door to whatever it was that took over my culture.  Or maybe not, but I’m going with it.  Whatever the actual cause, I have learned my lesson and do solemnly swear that henceforth I will not take my starter for granted and will be more attentive to its condition.

And now the bread...

This happy accident was meant to be a lighter, softer, more kid friendly version of my usual crusty sourdoughs.  Apparently old habits really do die hard because in the end I made a bread very much in my usual style.  I was surprised that the addition of olive oil didn’t have a greater effect on the finished loaf, especially the crust.  I guess I need to turn down the heat next time if I want the crust to be less… crusty. 

 I was aiming for an even, tender crumb, but didn’t quite hit the mark on that either.  The oil certainly had a tenderizing effect, but I think it needed a little more mix time as well.

 But my criticism of this bread only applies to what I had meant to achieve.  Leaving my intentions aside, I must say I really like this bread!  The flavor is excellent, and all the more rich and complex because of the olive oil.  I may be “accidentally” baking this loaf more often.

 Marcus

After the last white bread bake using the Pharaoh’s Mastaba, we went back to a 67% whole grain; rye and wheat bread with rye and wheat sprouts and a variety of add-ins and seeds including wheat germ, flax, coriander, pumpkin, hemp, rosemary, chia, cumin and red rye malt baked in another variation of the Chacon.

 The Chacon is quickly becoming a favorite bread shaping method.  It is a fun way to make bread with as many variations as one can conjure up and imagine.  This time we used a plain knotted roll in the middle of the basket and surrounded it with a plain two strand braid that was twisted (Twisted Sisters).  Then we added the remainder of the dough which contained all the add ins and sprouts as a disk to the top – which will become the bottom when tipped put of the basket.

This gave us a new but handsome boule shape that had no add-ins in the finish top and all the add-ins on the bottom.  It will be like having two different breads in each slice.

The Chacon came out of the basket easily and it slid into the mini oven, without slashing, just as well and onto my new ceramic tile / stone - which quickly broke when we threw water onit by accident before closing the door to steam.  No worries, the tile only cost 88 cents and I have 11 more of them.  In the back of the mini, we used Sylvia’s steaming method with a Pyrex 1 cup measure half full of water with dish rag in it.

 The stone worked well and the Chacon was very brown and crunchy when it came out of the oven and it smelled wonderful too.  The boule cracked at each twist of the sister and at the knot seams.  We just love the way the Chacon cracks almost exactly where we want it to and think it should instead of willy nilly.  

 The crumb shots and tasting will follow after the Chaon cools.  The formula and method follow the pix’s. 

 Method

The method was similar to our recent bakes with (3) - 4 hours each, 12 hour SD levain build.  This time it was not retarded overnight because we used some sliced onion in the build that made it smell more sour than normal.  The flours were autolysed with the wet and salt for 12 hours in the fridge too.  We have been adding the salt in with the autolyse recently and cannot tell any difference when we do it this way.  Forgetting to add the salt days are now over.

After soaking in water for 4 hours, we placed the seeds to be sprouted on 2 damp paper towels covered with another and wrapped in plastic on a plastic cutting board.  Half way through the 24 hour sprouting period, we re-dampened the top towel and covered it back up.  The seeds were sprouted in 24 hours. 

 We mixed the dough with the autolyse with the KA for 8 minutes on 2 and  2 minutes more on KA3.  The dough was then moved to an oiled, plastic covered bowl to rest for 15 minutes before doing 5 sets of S&F’s every 15 minutes on a floured work surface.  When the S&F’s were complete the dough was left to develop and ferment for 1 ½ hours before going into the fridge overnight for 8 hours.  In the morning the dough was allowed to come to room temperature over 1 ½ hours on the counter.

 The dough was then portioned into (3) 150 g pieces for the knotted roll and the 2 strand, ‘twisted sister’ braid.  In a rice floured basket the knotted roll went in first in the center, then the twisted sister went in around the knotted roll.  The remainder of the dough was flattened out gently and all the sprouts and add ins were incorporated.  Once the add ins were incorporated evenly, the remaining dough was shaped into a boule and allowed to rest for about 5 minutes until it had relaxed.

 It was then flattened into a disk the width of the basket and placed on top of the roll and braid to make the finished Chacon in 3 distinct sections.

 After a 2 hour proof it had passed the poke test and was ready for the mini oven stone and 12 minutes of steaming at 450 F regular bake.  The steam was then removed and the mini oven turned down to 425 F convection this time.  The Chacon was rotated 90 degrees every 5 minutes.

 After the 2nd rotation the oven was turned down to 400  F convection.  20 minutes after the steam was removed, the bread was done – 32 minutes total.  It was allowed to cool with the oven off and the door ajar for 10 more minutes before being moved to the cooling rack.

Recently my wife and I started camping. Neither of us had been camping since we were kids, and we were both a little iffy on the idea, but we got dragged into it by some friends so we decided we'd jump right in. Turns out it was a great idea, we had a ton of fun and met a lot of new people who are growing to become friends. We've been camping again since then. We just got back from a trip, actually. One thing I like doing for new friends is to bake them bread. This presented a problem with camping because I was without my oven. Still, I soldiered on. I bought a cast iron dutch oven, the special kind with the lip on the upper lid and with legs so it could go over a fire and have coals placed on top. I was determined to bake bread.

The first time we went up, my phone died on the ride up and stayed dead the whole trip. This second time, however, we went to a different campsite that happened to have a generator, so I have pictures. This means I can share.

On the second day I decided to bake. It wasn't anything very complicated, a basic 65% hydration white bread. Since this has only been a new thing and I'm still learning how to do it, I've had to move back to the basics.

I put the dutch oven about a foot from the firepit when I started working on the bread. After kneading I turned the oven (which was now warm on the side facing the fire) 180 degrees and put the loaf in to rise. I had to keep turning the dutch oven to keep the metal nice and warm all around.

After the dough was risen, I found a long, thick piece of wood that let two of us lift the oven (making a mental list of things to bring next time) and we set it on the very inner edge of the pit.  After about five minutes we turned the oven 180 degrees to cook the bread evenly. Another five minutes later and we pulled the dutch oven out of the fire, set it on the stones surrounding the fire pit, and I used a collapsible trenching shovel to pile embers from the center of the fire on top. It was so hot that I singed the hair off my arm and I was sweating, though I was only near the fire for a few seconds.

I kept turning the dutch oven to keep the heat fairly even. I lifted the lid just a bit to check inside, and after much longer than I expected I turned out a beautiful loaf of bread.

I'm very pleased with how beautiful this loaf turned out. I sliced into it and handed my wife and one of her friends a slice. I walked to our tent for something, and about five minutes later this is what was left of my loaf:

 Apparently my friends were much less impressed with how beautiful it looked than they were with how it tasted.

Anyway, there was a bit of a clamor for more so I set to work on another loaf. This one wound up going in a few hours later since it was fairly cool out. Over that period of time the fire was built up a lot and then died down to coals. I had kept one spot clear for my dutch oven, I put the loaf in, let it rise like before and it rose beautifully. Then I dropped it in the fire, rotated, etc.

When I pulled the dutch oven out I was concerned because there was smoke/steam pouring out of the lid. I knew I had burned it, even though it had been in there for half the time. Nonetheless, it had only been cooking for 10 minutes, it was nowhere near done whether or not it was burned on the outside. So I let it cook in its own heat.

When I turned it out, this is what I found:

As you can see, it's a little ... crispy.

The outside, however, was the only part that burned. I found it to be more than edible, in any event, it was like eating toast without having to go through the whole toasting process. The crumb was tender and moist and this loaf lasted only marginally longer than the other.

I'm thinking this is going to be a thing from now on, on camping trips.

I'm not sure why there are big gaps after the second and third images. They don't look that way in my editor or in the upload screen. If anyone has tips for helping me fix it, let me know please.

Summer News.   My path in becoming a baker...

... goes through Powburn, Northumberland, England.

Hello, TFL friends. This is a delicate post for me to write, because it concerns a personal matter and because, as you probably know, I am not a native English speaker. However, I will do my best to communicate and make my story interesting.

It has been a long time since I have been so excited about what lies ahead, and I am happy to share with you my latest news.

A while ago, I mentioned that I was nursing an ambition to become a baker; a “real baker”! I want to run my own bakery. I want to bake good bread, offer it to nice people and make a living out of it. Without any money to begin a business, in the past year, all I did was dream, and hope that one day...? Well, that day has become closer than ever before. My dreams are no longer dreams; they have started to become real plans. I have two partners for moral and financial support. We have formed a Company and we are looking for premises to rent in my hometown of Timisoara and for baking equipment to buy. There is a long way to go, but things are moving at a good pace in the right direction.

I am a self-taught home baker. I have never been inside a commercial bakery. Yes, I am passionate, talented and smart (hope time will prove that :); but at the moment I lack the confidence, experience and knowledge found in a seasoned professional baker. I believe I am filled with sufficient determination and motivation that will allow me to plug these gaps and achieve all my dreams. Even if that means leaving behind my work as an Architect in order to fulfil these baking dreams!

A few weeks ago I started to look for the right place for me to work as an intern, a place where I would be able to learn, but also, a nice bakery, run by a nice artisan baker, willing to show patience, share knowledge and train a beginner. Luckily for me, I didn’t have to look for very long or very far. Andy (Ananda) has been my mentor and friend since my first day on TFL. I  wrote him a message and he generously agreed to help me.

So, what I am really excited about, as I mentioned earlier, is that I will be flying to Newcastle upon Tyne, and spending a whole week with Andy, at the beginning of August, in Powburn, England. He scheduled a special work programme so I can gain experience of working in a bakery and gain further knowledge which will help me to set up and run my own business. I will be doing my best to help him make the breads and other goods which he is planning to bake for Powburn Show, and in return, I will have the privilege to work and learn from a great baker and teacher. How is that for good news?

As you can imagine, I am very excited and happy about this arrangement and I am counting the days until this bread baking adventure begins. Who would have thought that my first trip to England would be an amazing baking experience, rather than a relaxing holiday? On the other hand, who would have thought that I would fall so much in love with bread that I would decide to change my career completely and take the bread path without a second thought?

 

I will leave Andy to add to my post later, with more details about his plans for our work together and I hope you will stay close for future notes.

Codruta

(www.codrudepaine.ro)

ps. My bread path won’t end in England, there will be a “part 2” coming soon, with other great news.

But for now, please be glad for me and wish me good luck!

Given my flour delivery was put back a week, and the weather has done nothing except rain here in the UK, seemingly incessantly, and forever, my baking schedule has been somewhat interfered with.

So, here are a few loaves I've baked recently.   The Gilchesters' loaves were made today, and I will repeat again tomorrow as I dive into a dissertation on UK Organic Wheat, and prepare for a trip to Dunbar in Southern Scotland to introduce a training programme at a great local Bakery Co-operative

Borodinsky using the Auerman Process

Rye Sour build:

Final Paste:

Method:

• Build the sourdough as described above.   Make the “scald” as follows:   crush the coriander and add it to the red rye malt and dark rye flour.   Weigh the molasses into a pan, add water and bring to a rolling boil.   Tip this onto the flour mix, and add any extra boiling water if there is evaporation.   Stir well to ensure full gelatinisation.   Cover and cool.
• Once sufficiently cool, add the scald to the sour to make the sponge.   Cover and leave to ferment for 4 hours @ 35°C.
• For the final paste combine the sponge with remaining flour and the salt, mix with the paddle beater in an upright machine, 2 minutes on first speed and 2 minutes on second speed.   Scrape down the bowl to ensure thorough mixing.
• Bulk proof for 2 hours with DDT at 28°C.
• Scale and divide into 5.   Shape and drop into 5 Sandwich Pans, prepared with lining of shortening and coating of rye flour.   Smooth off and top with freshly crushed Coriander seeds, then apply lids.
• Final proof for 2 hours at 28°C, then bake.
• Pre-heat the oven to 280°C.   Load the pans, apply steam, after 10 minutes turn the oven down to 110°C, and move to Convection setting.   Keep a supply of steam in the oven and bake for 6 hours.
• Cool on wires; wrap in linen and leave 24 hours before cutting into the bread.

 This is a video demonstrating how best to scale these loaves, and shape them for the pans.   In years gone by at Village Bakery, a team of 2 bakers would produce 2 x 150kg batches of this type of Rye paste and scale it off in this way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf36f0Fw0_E&feature=youtu.be

 Roasted Brazil Nut and Prune Bread

Method:

• Prepare the Biga the night before.
• Combine all the ingredients in the mixer except the fruit and nuts.   Mix on first speed until clear, scraping down as needed.   Mix for 6 minutes on second speed with the hook attachment.   Rest the dough for 20 minutes then add the fruit and nuts and mix to clear using a Scotch cutter.   DDT 28°C.
• Bulk Ferment 1½ hours.
• Scale and divide into 3 x 1kg pieces; mould round.   Rest 15 minutes then shape as bloomers.   Glaze with beaten egg.
• Final proof 1½ hours.
• Score the tops of the loaves with 4 diagonal cuts and bake in a pre-heated electric oven at 170°C with convection for 55 minutes.
• Cool on wires.

Both the Borodinsky and the Toasted Brazil Nut and Prune Breads were lovely.   My apologies, the photographs don't really tell the best story.   It seems to be permanently dark in our house at the moment...and it was our longest day very recently too!!

 Gilchesters’ Miche

Makes 2 loaves @ 1350g

Levain build:

Method:

• Build leaven as schedule.
• Mix Farmhouse flour and water for 3 minutes on first speed, then autolyse for 1 hour.   Add leaven to Autolyse and mix for 5 minutes on first speed.   Add the salt and mix a further 4 – 7 minutes on first speed.   Scrape down the bowl as necessary.   DDT 24°C.
• Bulk proof 3 hours; S&F after 1 and 2 hours.
• Scale, divide and mould round.   Rest 15 minutes, covered, and prepare the bannetons.   Re-mould dough pieces and place upside down in bannetons.
• Final proof 2 – 3 hours.
• Score top with an “A” and bake in a pre-heated electric oven at 250°C with steam for 10 minutes.   Switch to convection, drop the heat to 200°C and bake a further 30 minutes.   Drop the heat to 160°C and bake out 12 - 15 minutes.
• Cool on wires.

Crumb shots!

This all leaves me with a good bit of baking to do next week as the Alnwick Farmers' Market takes place on Friday.   After that, it's Hexham on Saturday week.

The Summer looks busy; Alnwick Farmers' Market end of July; Powburn Show early August, more on this soon; holiday on Paxos for 2 weeks; August Farmers' Market; Bank Holiday party for friend's 50th.   Then in September it's Alnwick Food Festival, where I'm doing a presentation and taking a stall along with my colleague Ann from Doughworks [ http://www.doughworks.co.uk/ ]

Happy Baking everybody!

Andy

Finally, success.  I watched Mark Strausman on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqJLExaX0yc and saw how he shapes the fully--and I mean fully to the point where the dough is blistering and nearly collapsing (thanks to Stan for that point)--proofed rolls and then baked them convection (450, 25 degress lower than conventional oven temp, preheated oven), two baking sheets (no stone), reversing the sheets midway.  I used a combination of the recipes in ITJB and Hamelman's Bread (except for the onions--I like them sauteed, no breadcrumbs, with a little poppy seed).  Here you have them:

Thanks to everyone who had suggestions, and you'll be happy to know that this was relatively "a piece of cake" (er--bialy).  

Joy

Hi TFL. I'm a long time lurker on here. I've been baking bread for about 3 years now. First as a home baker and now professionally. I owe much of what I know to the fresh loaf(I've been using it as a resource almost the entire time I've baked!). I figure it's about time I contribute to the site.

I'm planning on posting about my home baked experiments  in the future but in the meantime I'll share what I think is the best way to learn about baking bread.

For my first proffessional baking job I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to start a bread program at a local restaurant. I made essentially the same kind of bread everyday but I also made sure to experiment nearly every single time I made it. A little longer bulk one day, a slightly higher oven temperature the next, maybe try a new steaming method for a week. I tried everything I could think of to improve my bread. I learned more about bread doing this than any other experience I've had. Experimenting with one kind of bread over and over to see what effect small changes make on the end result is invaluable to a baker. I cannot think of a better way to learn.

To illustrate this point, here are my first loaves I baked at the restuarant:

And after one year of baking the same bread and experimenting everyday:

I'm not saying you have to go out and bake the same loaf for a year but do try baking the same formula a few times in a row. If you haven't already done this I'm positive you will learn something valuable from the experience.