It hasn't been a snowy winter, but (an unnervingly warm first half of January aside) it has been a cold winter. Thankfully, spring has finally arrived. Our New England canopy is finally greenish again, and the temperature has been creeping toward, occasionally even attaining, 70 degrees. Which can only mean one thing.

Time to bake burger buns.

Well, thanks to Mountaindog, Tomsbread, Jane and, I'm sure, many others. I finally succeeded in baking a Desem bread at 85% hydration. The key really was folding and gentle, but firm, shaping. I folded three times during the bulk fermentation, preshaped and then did a final shape. It paid off -- the only flatbread I baked this weekend was a pizza.

I built this oven soon after I became enamored of building with cob [clay dirt lots of sand and straw. Kiko Denzer's book was a great help. And cob is a pure delight to work with. If there is a sculptural cell in your body cob will bring it out.....for better or worse. I'll add other shots later. It seems pretty clunky to have to upload pics one at a time. This is in a lot of ways my favorite stage of the oven's completion but it needs lime plaster on it to protect it from the elements better.

Ron

Hello I just finally got logged in. This web site has crashed my browser [surfari mac os X ] more times in one day than it has in 5 years. I switched browsers to get going. I have baked my third desem bread batch a few days ago and am pretty pleased with the result. But I have questions so I hope there are some other desem users here.

To begin:

Laurel Robertson, I owe you an apology. I pulled a loaf of Desem bread out of my oven about an hour ago, and, unable to wait any longer, just cut a slice to eat. Without doubt, it is the most delectable, fully flavored whole wheat loaf I have ever eaten. Why it took me this long to get it right, I don't know. But I'm glad I did. When I'm making dinner bread from now on, I'll be making this.