It's been a bit since I've baked. Bread has been bought at our house lately, which I'm not that happy with, and therefore I figured I should get in gear again. I wanted a bread that was relatively low fuss, so I decided on a reduced amount of yeast in a normal, slightly wetter dough.

I started with 2 cups of flour, 1/4 teaspoon of yeast, and 1 cup water. Those were mixed and left in my oven for 5 hours. By this time the mass had tripled and was looking quite good. I mixed in 1/2 cup more water and 1.5 teaspoons salt, then flour 1/2 a cup at a time until I came to the right consistency for me...ended up being about 3.75 cups. It was a rather wet, sticky mass. I kneaded it in the bowl until it formed itself into something vaguely resembling a ball and stashed it in my refrigerator until morning. Woke up, took it out, let it come to room temperature. Once there, I shaped the dough into as nice a ball as I could manage and placed it into a bowl bottom up. I let that double. Baked at 425 for 20 minutes covered, and then 10 minutes uncovered, until the middle reached 200 degrees. I think it needed a little longer in the oven, but it turned out pretty well.

I think the next time I make this I'll not do a preferment at all. I really don't think it changed anything. I'll just mix up the ingredients, knead for a little while, and then stash in the fridge for a long fermentation. It'll probably turn this into 36 hour bread, but that's quite fine with me if the results are this tasty.

The Fresh Loafers, This is the latest video where I'm working with some higher hydration (68%) doughs. Both of the breads are 'originals', and if you'd like to see the recipes you can probe around here for them or email me at the bakery. Anyway, I hope you like it. I decided to forego music this time and just add commentary. Nothing witty, strictly business. -Mark

Hey there everybody. Well about a month ago I asked for some advice in creating a 'Peasant Loaf', more specifically a Kalamata loaf, and I had lots of great suggestions and recipes. Anyways, this is what I came up with and it's derived mostly from the recipe AnnieT posted in the original thread (Dan Lepard's recipe), a recipe Bob (Oldcampcook) sent me, and my rustic white recipe that Eric (ehanner) blogged about not too long ago. Thanks so much everyone; I'll try to post the recipe as a PDF here so as not to clog up this thread too much.
EDIT: Unlike on the recipe, I now add the olive oil mixture at the beginning of the mixing at the same time as the water.  Also, I'm now baking this loaf and all of my other without bannetons - just shaped freeform on parchment paper.  Oh, and for you technical types, this is a description of the sequence pics below from left to right and top to bottom:
fold at 1 hour; fold at 2 hours
shaping; just placed in bannetons
after proofing for 80 minutes; scoring before baking
They were baked on the parchment/pan for 20 minutes, then removed w/ a peel and baked on the oven rack (with a pan below to catch any drips) for 15 minutes

-Mark

kalamata sequence

loaf

crumb

Well it's been since I first found TheFreshLoaf in 2006 that I posted to my bread blog. Up until recently I hadn't had much time or energy to do much baking. Couple that with my love of crusty breads and whole wheat and my wife likes non-crusty, white breads and all the married folk can understand how this variable can decrease the amount of bread time for Jason.

This is a new recipe I made from Daniel Leader’s book, Local Breads, for a Parisian loaf of

Country Sour

I have been baking larger (2# ) loaves of rustic Italian formula free form recently. I decided to double the mix and drag out the large linen basket and try one more time to get the proofing right. Usually I over proof and the dough falls with a thud as I approach the slashing table with bare blades. I have been following Mariana's procedure for crusty Italian and my handling of the dough has been more on the gentle side with a strict 1 hour limit on the bulk ferment.

I baked this very large, rustic Italian loaf (pagnotta) a couple weeks ago from Daniel Leader’s wonderful new book, Local Breads, page 197.  He states that it is to bake until almost black or charred for the most authentic loaf.  I didn’t go quite that far but you can see it developed a lot of color which I always prefer in my loaves.