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Hey! I'm back! I just had a HUGE culinary failure 2 months ago and since then I haven't baked or cooked anything until last week. My failure was so huge and heartbreaking that just talking about it makes me sad. I kept myself busy so I could move on but there are always reasons to celebrate so I made these gifts to give to some significant persons to me.

as we pack up this morning to get out of the way of Hurricane Matthew.  On our way to friends on the Gulf Coast.

SFBI Pain au Levain.  2x350g, 2x605g.

Well, after having spent five days in Prague, sampling their wonderful bread (there is even fresh, home-baked sourdough multi-grain bread in the convenience stores!), I came back to my daughter's house to find no fresh bread. So off we go again. First, some more of the seed bread for toast. This also makes very good toasted egg, ham and cheese sandwiches for breakfast, especially with some of the excellent cheese I got at Neal's Yard in London Borough Market - the best cheese shop in the best market in the world! :)

Well, it's finally happened.  I lost two of my starters during a long trip away in England.  I have an all white flour starter and a mixed starter with white, rye and ww flours and both bit the dust as I was away for five weeks. I fed them right before I left and put them in clean jars.  I'll never do that again!  I've traveled before and they have been fine.  AND in the UK, my starter seems OK, but smells terrible.  My niece feeds it while I am away, so I am not sure why it smells so bad.

Hi Folks just a couple of pics of my new starter at work producing a loaf of dubious pedigree with a whole mix of bits of flours used including country grain mix, wheat meal and some bakers flour. 

My previous culture was lost so the new one was started a short time ago, looking good in its infancy.

I've been playing every weekend with add-ins, this is my latest effort. Also the highest ratio of whole wheat to white I've challenged so far.

450 g. AP flour

550 g. whole wheat flour

160 g. type 110 starter, 100% hydration

19g. salt

741 , water

80 g. hemp seeds

50 g. toasted sesame seeds

80 g. bulghur wheat

150 g. dried currants

I soaked the bulghur and currants overnight, they took up a lot more water than I expected. Unfortunately I didn't keep track of the amount of water in the soaker, something to remember for next time.

Since I was focusing on baguettes this weekend, I decided to do a redo of the Kamut Sourdough from last weekend but slightly changed it by increasing the Kamut.

This makes 3 loaves. 

1. Build up to 450 grams of rye/unbleached flour levain in two stages over 24 hour. 

2. Dissolve all of levain in 900 g warm water and add 800 g unbleached flour, 300 g Kamut, 200 g whole grain whole wheat and 50 g dark rye. 

3. Let sit for one hour (Not a true autolyse) in a warm spot. 

4. Pinch and fold in 32 g sea salt. 

A while ago, I had asked for baguette help and Alfanso was kind enough to share three formulas.  My mom had knee surgery almost 3 weeks ago and being French, she loves baguettes. Does she want my other bread? No! She wants baguettes.

So I went back to Alfanso's post and made the first formula. Of course, mine are nowhere near as pretty as his but they still thrilled my mom. 

I followed the recipe as posted below aside from sneaking in 25 grams of wholewheat and 25 g of dark rye. Here is the link: 

I baked this bread last night. It is beautiful.  

From a new (2016!) book of Stanley Ginsberg: "This bread is yet another example of how traditional breads changed when they came across the Atlantic. I found this recipe in Bread Lines, the quarterly newsletter of the Bread Bakers Guild of America, and was both excited to have come across this representative of the Nordic rye tradition in America and intrigued with its adaptation to American tastes and agriculture.

This week’s bake was an experiment for me!  Dab suggested fermenting the porridge mix that I add to the dough. I didn’t know that was even a thing, so of course I had to try it.

Here’s the formula: