The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Mid-Michigan check in.

mkelly27's picture
mkelly27

Mid-Michigan check in.

It's a long story shaping my bread history. Beginning in NorthEastern Pa. (home of great bread), then Southern Fla. (home of no good bread), to the hub of the Universe, Clare Michigan (home of some really nasty Amish bread baked by folks with no hot water in their kitchen).

 

If you followed along with my geographic handicaps, you can see that I started baking bread out of the need to eat "Great" bread again. I've been gaining on attaining my goal of "world class" breads from a home kitchen for about 12 yrs. now. I would guess that in a year I bake around 200 loaves, that includes some 30 or 40 loaf batches for parties. My old standby has been the BBA Ciabatta, I can do that one in my sleep, Pain le Ancienne from BBA, is one of my favorite crowd-pleasers, and the ABAA version of Kossar's Bialy is made on a weekly basis in my kitchen. Lately, I have been producing some wonderful one pound Rye boules, from Rose's Bread Bible. The Rye has been great, folks request it more than the Ciabatta, I extend the sponge overnight, retarded in the fridge, substituting maple syrup for the malt syrup.

 

I've come to this site to develop my natural yeast starter recipes. Books are okay, but the folks here are a wealth of real information. "Sourdough Lady's" pineapple starter is bubbling away in my basement kitchen, and I am looking forward to trying it out this weekend.

 

Mike

Trishinomaha's picture
Trishinomaha

Welcome !

This is a wonderful site with some real master bakers. The information and "give and take" are great. Everyone is great about answering questions here as well. I've been reading and baking just since January and I have over 100 threads checked!

Enjoy!

Trish in Omaha

redivyfarm's picture
redivyfarm

to this really helpful community of bakers. I also had to get back to bread baking out of necessity. Our weekend home is in a small logging and fishing community. Its a favourite destination for friends and family bearing great gifts of wine! The bread was the missing note in our super seafood fests. The input of the wonderful bakers on this site makes every batch better!

tigressbakes's picture
tigressbakes

Well, I live in NYC and the Berkshires in MA> there is no shortage of good bread on either end.

BUT, I started baking because the urge was so so great....and now that I have started I can literally feel the urge in my hands when I can't get to my kitchen! :-)

bluezebra's picture
bluezebra

Fellow newbie here! Can't wait to read about your awesome sounding bread!

p.s. We LOVE piccys! :D