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500ml lukewarm water 

~1/4 cup homemade caramel color *

260g dark rye flour 

300g bread flour

300g all purpose flour 

9g dry yeast

5g onion powder

3g ground caraway seeds 

18g salt

30g granulated sugar

*burn 2 heaped tablespoons od granulated sugar in a small saucepan until golden brown. Remove from heat. Be careful, it's hot like lava! Let cool then add ¼ cup boiling water and wait until everything dissolves. It will look like dark beer

I've wanted to try the tourte de seigle pur (100% rye bread) from l'Ecole international de boulangerie's video tutorial for a while.

The learning continues.  Thanks to receiving a cornucopia of suggestions on my previous bake of the Bouabsa Pullman I moved forth and applied some of those changes, further upgrading my nascent Pullman pan skills.

This recipe is based on Hamelman's 80% Rye with a Rye Flour Soaker from Bread (3rd Ed.).  I followed the recipe as written with two exceptions.  I used a mash at 125% hydration instead of a soaker at 100% hydration, and I used a 50:50 barley:rye flour in the mash instead of all rye flour.  The recipe calls for Medium Rye but states that Whole Rye can be substituted.  I used fresh milled Whole Rye.

Here is my quasi recipe for this bread

Stage 1, scald 

In a 6oz mason jar I scald 3 rounded tablespoons of whole rye flour with some boiling water, mix it into sticky mass, add 1 teaspoon of white rye malt, mix well, cover and let stand in a warm place for about 2-3 hours 

Stage 2, kvas (liquid preferment)

Kümmel-Bier Brot (Caraway Beer Bread) from The Rye Baker book. This bread is for lovers of caraway seed (sorry Benny!); it has a whopping 2% caraway seed. The bread is 50% rye and 50% first clear or high-gluten flour, barley malt syrup, and beer for half the liquid. The recipe calls for 2:1 white/medium rye to approximate German 997 rye flour. I did not have any white rye flour but used all medium rye (KA brand) and increased the hydration from 60% to 65%. Vital wheat gluten was used to boost KA bread flour to 14% gluten; beer was Destihl Weissenheimer hefeweizen.

My liquid preferment became active and bubbly yesterday. The taste turned from sweet to pleasantly acidic. Early in the morning I made a preferment, which probably will be ready in 12 hours or so

I received The Bread Baker's Apprentice as a gift this year, which I hadn't baked from yet.  I also have a bag of Central Milling's Old World Bread Flour I got this Fall, which is my favorite bread flour I've tried so far, but due to my fondness for whole grain home milling, I haven't been using it.  I put them together to make Reinhart's simple Pizza Napoletana recipe and to get some practice with instant yeast.

574 g flour

12.5 salt

3 g yeast

25 g olive oil

411 g water

Dough:

Bread flour, 800g

Mashed potatoes (they had some dill in them) 200g

Water, 520g

Diastatic malt,  10g

Salt, 12 g or to taste 

Olive oil, two splashes

Toppings: 

1. Grape tomatoes, cut in half,  oregano 

2. Mashed potatoes, scooped with a teaspoon, spicy vegan sausage,  herbs (dried chive blossoms and thyme) 

I also used emulsion of water, olive oil and salt on both focaccias 

Version 2.0

Last week I made a lemon cranberry kugelhof and quite enjoyed it. However, Naturaleigh mentioned getting more out of my lemon zest by mashing it with the sugar. I started wondering what other innovations I could try to amplify flavour, loft and richness.

Modifications

I modified last week's recipe as follows: