I'm from Germany and have always made my own bread. Since I moved to America 3 years ago I have always wondered what exactly Artisan Bread is? What makes bread Artisan?
It's just a question that's always foated through my mind. Maybe you can help me out.Martina

Hello from England

I've just found 'The Fresh Loaf'. Most of you seem to be from way over on the left hand side of the map from me (at least the way we print them here), but I love the site and it's good to know that you are all out there baking

Still working on the nuances of oven temperature. It’s really a comedy of timing between two ancient processes—bread making and fire building. It seem like if I get it over 600 degrees at the start, it takes a good 45 minutes to reach a more comfortable 550 for bread baking, but then it holds the temps nicely for hours. Handy if you have multiple batches, less handy if you were hoping to cook your dinner at 350 degrees anytime soon. I do crack the door to bring the temp down a bit quicker.

I haven't been around as much lately, lots of fun busy-ness like gardening and outdoor activities. But I've have lurked a bit at all the lovely baking on the fresh loaf!

We haven't used the mud oven as much this spring (funny we used it more over the winter) but had a good excuse to fire it up today. We discovered a good system of teamwork--DH managed the fire, and I stuck to the breadmaking. Not that I don't like playing with fire, but trying to do both was a stretch of my multitasking skills. It was a long day of baking but pretty relaxing overall.