AnneTXbaker's blog

I've learned many things in my 60+ years, but one thing gets forgotten sometimes, and that is: Don't do too many things at the same time! 
Preparing the dough for (Jeffrey Hamelman's) Pain au levain I was distracted and poured 400ml warm water into the starter, instead of the 280ml.  Thankfully I realized my mistake, and added a 50g mix of rye, and bread flour.  The dough was a little more hydrated than usual, but felt great during the S&Fs, and in to the fridge it went.
Long story short:  Baking day oven was on for other things, and I forgot to place my baking stone in the oven.
Lodge cast iron DO to the rescue! 
In it went. 
Temperature increase achieved.  Dough goes in and 55 minutes later...HUGE sigh of relief!

Having found the Polenta Pepita sourdough bread recipe on this site, I set about making the bread only to realize that the hubz had used the last of the Pepita seeds on his salad!
And so the recipe "evolved" into a new one!
Pepitas were replaced by pinenuts, and with the addition of two tablespoons of Pesto sauce what should have been a Mexican ingredients loaf, became an Italian ingredients loaf.
Since the Pesto is quite high in sodium I reduced the salt to just 15g.
The flavor and crumb are both great.

The only other notes for this bake:  One loaf was baked in a cast iron Dutch Oven placed in a hot oven, and the other loaf was baked in a pre-heated Romertopf. The loaf in the foreground is the D.O. baked loaf..better oven spring!