I have seen this flour mentioned A LOT, sorry if this is a dumb question, but - where in the US is it available?

I imagine there are sources to get in the internet, but paying shipment of flour is so expensive!  I would like to know where to get it, maybe in one of my next travels I could find myself in the right spot and would get my luggage a bit heavy coming back....

Recently I ran across an article by Mark Bittman in the NY Times about no-knead bread, and I decided to try it. The recipe calls for flour, yeast, salt, and water. Sinple and straightforward. No oddball ingredients or procedures - or so I thought.  I mixed everything together, covered the bowl with plastic wrap and let it stand at room temperature for 18 hours as instructed. At the end of this time I poured the dough out on my heavily floured marble table and sprinkled it with more flour. "Poured" is the operative word here. The dough was roughly the same consistency as soap bubbles, though heavier. When I tried to pick it up, it oozed through my fingers. With great difficulty, and the help of a bench knife, I managed the stretch and fold maneuver.

The instructions say that at this point one should form the dough into a ball. Right. I would have had more luck forming hollandaise sauce into a ball. Using a small metal peel I got the very wet dough into a heavily floured banneton, where it rose for 2 hours. I pre-heated the oven to 450, along with a metal pot and cover. Then came the transfer from the banneton to the pot which, upon being removed from the oven, was now a toasty 450 degrees.This exercise was complicated by the fact that the very wet dough had stuck to the heavily floured linen cloth lining of the banneton. [We won't discuss my language at this point, except to say that it was extensively non-Biblican in nature.] Transferred into the pot, the dough was not a pretty sight.  Undaunted, I popped the lid on the pot and put the whole thing in the oven. Thirty minutes later, upon removing the lid, the bread was lumpy looking, but it smelled bread-like.

After the 45 minute baking period, I removed the bread from the oven and turned it out to cool. It was lumpy and misshapen but smelled wonderful. After it cooled I sliced some for supper and discovered a magnificently crunchy crust and a very, very moist crumb with big holes that were reminiscnt of a ciabatta.The flavour was incredibly good.

So where does the mistake come in? I had misread the recipe. [Is it relevant, at this point, to say that I have a visual problem and difficulty in reading small print? Excuses, excuses! The more likely scenario is inattention to detail.] The recipe called for 1 5/8 cups of water. I had used 1 7/8. Someone is likely to point out something about baker's math at this point, so I should tell you that itt has long been my opinion that math has too many numbers and not enough adjectives. I tend to avoid it except for those hideously necessary things like balancing the bank statement.

While I will certainly try the recipe with the proper amount of water, I will also continue to make this bread with far too much water in it. It was delicious, truly some of the best and most flavourful bread I have ever made.

These were so good!  I was not sure we would like them, some of the folks who made those before me (for the BBA Challenge) were not very pleased.

Definitely, the secret is rolling the dough thin - it was very easy to work the dough and roll it out. Once more, I abandoned the "kneading to death" and instead folded the dough (actually this time I used that method of slapping it on the counter a few times, as it is a lower hydration dough).

I include a photo here and for those who are into the blog thing  :-)  you can see my full report here

I should also add that this company

http://www.nybakers.com/

is awesome: thanks to their amazing quick shipment, I was able to get nigella seeds right in time to add to the crackers

http://bewitchingkitchen.wordpress.com/2009/09/13/bba17-lavash-crackers/

I am originally from southwest philly, and i have been trying to find a faithful soft pretzel receipe on the internet. so i search and I have found one, and I haven't been getting consistent results from it. When i try to roll out the dough and form it into the classic philly style shape, the dough just wants to spring back to its original length, and not the 20 inches or so i need. Im not sure if this is because i am under/over kneading or not letting the dough rise or rest enough...any help would be appreciated.

Following the lead of rick.c (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/13531/can-i-just-make-recipe) I decided to try a rye infused poolish vesion of ciabatta using beer as an ingredient.

The formula and procedure went like this:

Lager/Rye Ciabatta

Poolish
92 grams AP flour
48 grams rye flour
140 grams water
    ferment 3 days in fridge

160 grams bread flour
52 grams lager beer

5 grams salt
3 grams active dry yeast

Mix with stand mixer, knead 10 minutes using dough hook
Move to oiled bowl to raise 90 minutes or approx. double in mass

Stretch and fold 8 - 10 times, shape into loaf, oil top and cover
with plastic wrap to proof 60 - 90  minutes or approx. double in mass

Baking stone, parchment, 500 degree oven with water in container to provide steam
5 minutes, remove water, reduce heat to 425 degrees

Bake approx, 10 more minutes to internal temperature of 200 degrees.

The results were:

Click on thumbnail for larger view.

Crust was brown, tender and offered a somewhat nutty flavor

Crumb was open, very light and tender, a slightly sour rye flavor

This one was pleasing, but I think I'll try a dark beer next time and allow it to reach 205 degrees before removal from oven.

Maybe a dumb question. Does the Fleischmann's sourdough Bread Machine Mix actual contain a sour dough yeast or is it just a bread mix with a flavouring agent in it? Their website doesn say much about them.

thanks

I know a few people who post here are doing the BBA Challenge, so I am sharing my results.

I made Kaiser Rolls yesterday, they turned out very good. One of the interesting things about this challenge, is that it seems to me the results are better if I skip the kneading and fold the dough instead. It is a little early to draw a conclusion, because this was only the second bread in which I changed the method. But we shall see

:-)

I have photos and a full description of the rolls here

http://bewitchingkitchen.wordpress.com/2009/09/06/bba16-kaiser-rolls/

For the moderators of the forum (or regular posters), please let me know if posting a link to my own blog goes against some guidelines, or rules.

I include only one photo in this message....

This is a strange question perhaps but was wondering....can bread be baked in a corn roaster?  This roaster is a huge one fueled by propane and is a rotisserie.  My cousin has one for sale and I thought it would be cool to roast corn, sweet potatoes and perhaps even bread.

Anyone heard of such a thing?

These are inspired by the "Chocolate Things" at the Cheesboard Bakery in Berkeley. However, since I've become somewhat obsessed with my sourdough starter (Sebastian) since growing it (him?) a month or so ago, I of course, decided to modify the recipe to use up some of my discards.

Recipe (all measurements are in volumes, and are also approximate--I am chronically incapable of sticking with any precision to any recipe whatsoever. I know it would probably help my baking if I did, but going by dough-poking feel is more fun.)

Combine in a bowl: 3/4 cup sourdough starter discards (straight from fridge, they'd been accumulating for about a week), 3/4 c water, 1 c flour. Let sit for 2 (or more) hours. Mine bubbled, but didn't rise very much.

Add in 3/4c water mixed with about 1/4 tsp. dry yeast (I was worried that my discard starter needed a bit of help, but you could probably skip this), 1 egg, 2 Tbsp sugar, 2 Tbsp very soft butter, and about 3-4 c flour until a soft, fairly moist dough forms. Knead for a few minutes, then cover and let rise for about 3 hours. My dough almost tripled in this time.

Fold/knead into the dough about 1cup coarsely chopped chocolate chips. Shape into balls (or a loaf) and let proof on a baking sheet for about 45 minutes while the oven preheats to 400. Bake for about 20 minutes. I sprayed the oven for steam right as I put them in.

The sourdough taste is less pronounced than I'd like, but they are great for a breakfast or snack treat. As the dough isn't too sweet, the chocolate doesn't seem too overly decadent. (Which of course is my justification for eating them right out of the oven.)

I'm going to try and convert a volume based recipe to a weight based one. I've read the posts here about measuring out a cup and weighing it (makes sense to me) and to see whether the recipe author offers any suggestions for how to measure flour by volume.

The book I'm using does not.

So, should I pour from the flour into the cup, then level, or spoon from the bag then level, or sift from the bag, then level?

Thanks.

Jeremy