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DISCLAIMER: THE RESULTS OF THIS EXPERIMENT COULD BE DANGEROUS OR EVEN FATAL. I AM NOT ENCOURAGING ANYONE TO DO THE SAME INSTEAD I AM JUST SHARING MY EXPERIENCE IN THIS UNIQUE CRAFT. IF YOU WISH TO DO SOMETHING SIMILAR, DO SO AT YOUR OWN PERIL.

WARNING: EXPLICIT PHOTOS OF POSSIBLE BIO-HAZARDS. IF YOU HAVE AN IRRATIONAL FEAR OF FUZZY THINGS, CLOSE THIS TAB/WINDOW NOW!

 So, Thursday afternoon saw the annual Leftover Christmas Party at friends. Part of the fun is a vague idea, but no certainty of what there is going to be to eat. Christmas leftovers, but quite what,and in what form. I made a turkey and ham pie, and also wanted to take some bread (it is sort of expected, after all, and gives me a further excuse to bake).

Inspiration came from a link in the Christmas edition of Bread Magazine e-mail, https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9DNfPUsCYm4

One of our Christmas traditions is to have strawberry crepes and bacon for breakfast Christmas morning. Which always results in a whole lot of bacon fat in a tin in the fridge. I've been meaning for some time to try this in bread, and didn't have any baking for customers this week, so this was my chance.

The basic recipe is a fairly simple sourdough:

• 85% bread flour
• 15% whole wheat flour
• 68% water
• 2% salt
• 25% levain (100% hydration)

Just for a twist, I used whole durum atta flour in place of the whole wheat flour.

This is my first venture into baking with Kamut. It won't be my last. Kamut is a copyrighted name for Khorasan wheat which is an "ancient grain" - one of the ancestors of modern durum wheat. Like durum, it is a large berry that is yellowish in color and, when used in high percentages, gives a yellowish color to the bread's crumb. It is claimed that individuals who cannot tolerate the commonly available modern hybrid wheat can tolerate breads made with ancient grains (eikorn, emmer, khorasan).

About 5 months ago, on July 20th, 2017, my partner Jana and I (Mr. Zita) opened our bakery called “Bang Bang” in Siem Reap, Cambodia. The name Bang Bang is derived from the Khmer / Cambodian word “Nombang”, meaning “bread”. We specialize in sourdough breads and cakes, with heavy influences from North America, UK, Germany and France. Why so international? Simply because I’m Cambodian-Canadian and my partner is German-British. ;)

My brother requested some bread to go with Xmas dinner so I went back to my adaptation of MutantSpace's bread and changed the seed combo a bit. This was also the bread that I used to do the experiment with baking in a cold oven with a cold dutch oven or baking in a hot dutch oven in a preheated oven. The wider loaves on the right were the ones baked in the cold combo pot and oven. They spread out more and ended up with a peaked appearance rather than a full rounded one like the loaves done in the hot pot and oven. Either way, the bread had a very nice mouthfeel and was delicious! 

This is a continuation of tweaking Maurizio Leo's Best Sourdough Recipe My first efforts can be found in my blog here.

https://youtu.be/lrkbBruCoPA

https://youtu.be/nOoEgTvmxyM

Merry Christmas fresh loafers! This has been my go to recipe for sandwich bread for some time now. It freezes well sliced and each loaf keeps me for 2 - 3 weeks in sandwich bread. The recipe is a version of Peter Reinhart's recipe for soft sandwich bread and rolls from Artisan Bread's Every Day. I use a natural yeast, a sweet levain at 100% hydration. The current levain is at least three years old.

          Happy Holidays to everyone.  As usual, we celebrated the holidays with family and friends and cooked and baked and baked some more :).