Now I know what to do with my stale loaves...

Via Boing-Boing.  Shoes for sale here.

I needed to be able to reach back into my oven to pour water into my lava stone filled iron pans.  A 7" small for pre steaming and the extra large 12" iron pan filled with lava rock because with this size I can add more water for extra steam if needed.  I leave them in oven the whole time.  I steam from above because my 2 stones are made to cover the complete shelf and I leave both stones because I like room it gives for baking.  I took my ladle that holds just under a '1/2' cup of hot water and bent it so the handle became even with the cup.  Now I can easily reach far back and with an oven mit and without my hand or arm going into the oven itself and I don't have to worry about breaking blubs, oven glass 'it's still covered with a towel. I tried several pouring devices..this works great for me and was simple to make..I just bent the handle.  Now I have a very long reach with just a simple twist of my wrist to pour in the water.  I grab the towel off the oven glass door with my left hand and quickly shut the oven door with my right with ladle still in hand.

Sylvia

I just wanted to recommend the recipe given on this site: Seeded Sourdough Recipe, and post a couple of pictures of my try at the bread. I found the recipe to be well done, and the ferment/proof times pretty close to what I used. I was surprised the loaf came out as well as it did, as I thought the seeds may break the worked up gluten (I did do a couple more stretch and folds than called for, maybe that helped, perhaps not), and the oven spring was fairly good for how little a boule I made (may be due to a better scoring pattern, or a higher hydration than I am used to, or luck). Anyways, thanks to the original post-er, as I have found a reliable seeded sourdough recipe that I will definitely make again. 

 Seth

Sorry for the low quality of pictures- taken with a macbook. 

The taste and texture were good, and even had hints of peanut butter (yet there were no peanuts in it, guess it was the roasting of sesame/sunflower seeds).

One of those days!  Everything was going nicely.  Except I wasn't paying attention to those little details...that can cause big mishaps.  My Italian loaf was sitting on parchment and slid off the pan onto the stone and just kept rolling, right over.  It came right off the parchment halfway.  It was pushed, shoved, unstuck and rolled back over..by that time who cares!

Problem was I didn't have the pan low enough to the stone when sliding the loaf off..I just tipped it to slid it off..causing it to roll over onto the stone...when I should have kept the pan low to the stone and given a little jerk and pulled the pan away. 

Happy Halloween!

Sylvia 

We've had company for several days and I baked up a storm, but we ate most of it, and I gave the rest away as gifts.  It was a lot of fun but this morning there were only a couple slices of leftover sourdough for toast and that was it.  Great. I get to bake!  But it's a work day and not much time available so I baked just a couple of loaves of white bread to get us to the weekend.

and

This was based on a recipe by nbicomputers (thank you Stan!) that I found a few days ago and modified.  The recipe was for a straight dough, and it was beautiful.  I made up a preferment first from about 30% of the flour and water, and let it ferment for about 4 hours before I built the main dough.  I was trying to get some more flavor. I also scaled it up a little to fill two large loaf pans, but I kept it to just one egg and cut back on the sugar somewhat.  It still turned out a wonderful light texture, although the flavor is still somewhat sweeter than I wanted.  I also forgot to switch the oven from convection for preheating to straight bake, so I got a crisper, browner crust than I intended.  Brushing it with some melted butter right out of the oven seems to have taken care of that.  I'll certainly bake this one again one day.

OldWoodenSpoon

I did bake four loaves of SD sandwich bread today but those were boring pictures.  The fun time was playing with my 7-year-old son.  We built this Halloween spooky scene using saltine crackers, Triscuits, chocolate fingers, Oreo balls, candy bones and corn, pretzels, marshmallows, chocolate wafers, black licorice, and of course royal icing.

Here are two no knead loaves baked in an oblong cloche. Both were made using the same reipe, using 1/4 Cup of sourdough starter in lieu of 1/4 t of instant yeast. The difference is in the fermentation time (12 hours for the first and 16 hours for the second), and the resultant "explosion" of the crust with the second loaf. Has anyone else seen this type of reaction when Iusing sourdough starter? I do not get this reaction when using commercial yeast and varying the fermentation time as earlier described. The flavor is magnificent, by the way.

Yesterday's loaf with 12 hour fermentation.

Here is today's loaf with 16 hour fermentation. It's too hot to cut into, but I'm sure the crumb is very open.

Check out the shine inside of the split. Is this the sugars carmelizing when the lid was removed? The crumb in yesterday's loaf had a sheen to it in the air holes.

I would like to insert some photos in some of my posts here but don't know how. I clicked on the little tree picture but I can't seem to go anywhere with it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I just pulled this out of the oven tonight.  This is a loaf of "ordinary" french bread using the King Arthur Flour recipe for French Style Country Bread.  I was trying for a loaf of "sweet french bread" for my wife to use about half of in an egg casserole for a family brunch this weekend.  We get to eat the other half. :^)

and

This was baked in a La Cloche baker, only partially pre-heated, and then left covered for 20 minutes with the oven at 475F, then uncovered for about 15 more minutes at 450F.  I gave it a couple more minutes just to color up more because it was even more pale than it finished.  And the best part for me...  This loaf sang to me for nearly 10 minutes!  This is my first experience with this, and what music it was.  Way exciting.  I'll never get to sleep tonight now.

OldWoodenSpoon