I don't know when I first read you web page. It's been a couple of years now, I would guess. You gave me the courage to try to bake. I've made some tasty breads and pizza since then.

I finally got around to ordering "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" from the link on your site. It is a wonderful book. I am only about 50 pages in so far, but it is great!

It seems as though most of the ideas in the book, I've already read here! I'm not bashing the book - it is great, I'm glad I finally bought it; I'm just singing praises of your beautiful web site!

If my enthusiasm doesn't wane by next summer, I think it's time to build that backyard oven!

Thanks again Floyd!

John M.

Madison, OH

Hello everyone, nice site you have here.

I'm an engineer and a home brewer.  I'm baking more and more on my own due to a health problem that's forced me to control my diet.

Hi, I'm relatively new to Fresh Loaf and am really impressed with the activity and interaction of the members of this site. 

I live in the Switzerland and have a software business here with my husband (http://beancounter-ems.com). We also do translations and have met some wonderful people in the hotel and restaurant business as a result.

I also have a biscotti business with my sister near Boston. The internet and Skype make this possible as I do all the administrative work for the business, she does the production and sales, which we have been doing for five years now. We use mostly our family recipes originating from Italy as they have been in the food and restaurant business since my grandparents emigrated from Italy in 1894. http://pturo.com

I write a blog called Piacere - Food & Travel without rules! The blog is about my travels in Europe and recipes from my family as well as chefs and people who give them to me.  I like to take people on a journey to places that are local and introduce them to the culture, festivals and local dishes that you might not find in a travel guide. I love all the wonderful tourist sites, but try to encourage people to venture out and explore and mingle with the people of the country, or experience the back streets of a city and the wonderful dishes that are usually very different from the typical tourist menu. Switzerland as you can imagine is also one of my main travel destinations. This amazing country has been my home for the last 20 years. Since I live close to Como Italy, I do most of my shopping at the markets there and the wonderful selection of Italian products inspires my cooking.

I look forward to participating in this site and the wonderful recipes and people who are part of it. I'd like to invite you to follow my blog. http://turosdolci.wordpress.com

Patricia Turo

Hello everyone my name is traci and im from maryland.  I have been wondering on the forms for about nine months but haven't had time to post because we were moving and my computer died.  Finally got a new one yay!!  I have always been a bread lover and took a class on intro to baking at the local community college in the spring, were i fell in love with baking bread. i now bake on a regular bases, and have just started trying to make sour dough starter.  Hoping that i can get some help from you guys i used the fromula out of  reinhart's the bread baker's apprentice and got to the third day and it will not rise and hasn't even with two addtional days, my house is pretty cool right now probably between 65 to 75 degrees, could this have an effect on the rise, should i add more flour and water. thanks to any of you who help me with this and i hope a learn so new stuff from you guys.

traci

I've been lurking on this site for the past couple of years and have used several recipes, learned much from the lessons, and bought a couple of  recommended books. I'm somewhat famous amongst friends and family for Floyd's pita and rustic breads as I've made and gifted them so many times. I LOVE Maggie Glezer's Artisan Baking book (which I read about here) and have just ordered King Arthur's Whole Wheat Baking book. I've got sourdough starter waiting to be re-awakened in fridge. And today I'm going to try HUGO's quick version of whole wheat ciabatta.

What a great site! I totally blame The Fresh Loaf for my bread-baking addiction (and perhaps, my new-to-me this year Weight Watcher's membership). And on this Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, I'm very thankful this site is here - it's certainly helped me to become a better baker. I look forward to being a member now and ending my lurking ways.

I just wanted to introduce myself quickly

My name is Noor and I just started bread baking recently and I LOVE it

I also discovered this wonderful website and forums and it is great to have a place to exchange experiences and to find answers to so many questions.

I am looking forward to getting you all t know better and to share my bread baking adventures with you

Noor

Hello!  I have just joined this forum and have already asked a few questions and received answers!  First I would like to thank you all for being so attentive!  I am new to bread making.  I have worked in the corporate world my whole life and not much time left for cooking and baking.  Now that I am FREE I have found that I love to cook and I am so very interested in learning how to bake bread.  I always knew I would love to bake.  I spent 3 years living in Germany when I was young and my landlord was a baker.. so I am interested in getting a recipe for the German Landbrot which I saw on this website!  I look forward to talking with you all and thank you for this great website!!

I posted this into the sourdough forum, not realizing that there's a special one for introductions.. 

so here it is again, sorry for the duplication... 

Hi!   My name is Arie and I'm a breadoholoic..

I'm lurking around this board for a short while. Very interesting and tons of experienced people around here (and exceptionally civilized too :)..

I started baking bread over 30 years ago. I have no training and when I started this there was no Internet message boards to learn from.. ) 

I learned by trial and error (lots of those) and developed a couple of recipes which I liked. 

After moving to the San Francisco area I fell in love with sourdough dread and started to play with it, again from scratch, by trial and error. 

I ended up with a great recipe which I and all my family and friends really like. 

more and more people were asking me for the recipe, and I ended up posting it on my website (http://litman.com/food/bread.html )..

After reading this board for a while I realized that I am using the wrong terminology, and the process I follow is very different from traditional sourdough bread. But, I am baking this bread for over 10 years and I like it the way it is. 

Another Hobie of mine is beer, which I consider Bread in a liquid state.. in the past year I started to combine techniques and ingredients which make both bread and beer more exciting. 

I used my sourdough  starter to brew beer (I call it sourdough beer) and I use wort or DME (malt extract) for add to the dough.. And sometime I use malted barley as a crunchy topping on my bread.

I want to thank you for this great board and I hope to be able to contribute to the discussion.

Arie

Hello all, I've been a long time lurker here, and at last I decided to join this community.

I've been baking for 2 or 3 years with more or less success, but now I'm getting consistently good results.

I bake mostly sourdough, and my everyday loaf recipe is:

190 gr whole rye starter (100%)

450 gr high gluten flour

270 gr water (68%)

8 gr salt

1/2 tsp (3 gr, more or less) home made wheat diastatic malt

This is the result, a bread I really like:

I've tried other recipes, yeasted white breads, sweet breads, but this is the one I always come back to. Hope you like it.

This is a crazy question, but has anyone seen "Little Women" the movie? It's the one with Wynona Ryder in it, made in the 90's. Anyway, at their Christmas morning breakfast table, they had a shiny loaf, shaped (sortof) into a tight coronne (no hole in the middle though) with an orange on top in the middle. Anyone remember that?  

I'm trying to recreate that bread but can't seem to find anywhere that addresses what type of bread it was. I tried shaping challah the same way but it wasn't the same.

It was golden brown and shiny and apparently easily shapable. The movie paid close attention to detail, so I'm wondering what sort of late 1800's sort of bread it was.

Any ideas?