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I made the Tartine country loaf on two separate occasions and both didn't turn out right. Maybe the Tartine country loaf was an overly ambitious first try at a bread made with a starter? Before making my first Tartine country loaf, I had never made nor maintained a starter before nor had I ever made a leaven. But I followed all the directions laid out in the Tartine Bread book. When my starter was rising and falling predictably, I made the leaven. I tested the leaven and it floated so I guessed it was ready to use.

I wanted to try a seeded sourdough with a flax seed soaker, so i found the recipe below.  I made a number of variations along the way, due to preference and timing.  I noted the changes I made at the right of the original recipe.I wanted more of a whole wheat loaf, so I changed the recipe to add much more whole wheat and used a whole wheat starter. My husband and I really enjoyed the result.  It was crusty, but chewy, and the seeds inside really added a lot of tangy taste to the loaf.

Pane Valle Maggia, ver. 2

March 7 , 2014

Last month, I made Pane Valle Maggia, inspired by Josh's “Pain Maggiore.” It was a very good bread, but I wanted to make it again using freshly milled whole wheat flour. Also, I thought it would be improved by pre-fermenting the rye component. So, I made both changes for today's bake. The Total Dough ingredients were basically unchanged.

For a long time I was scared of using yeast. Although I am still a novice at bread making, the fear has subsided. In addition to learning bread making, I've always wanted to tackle laminated and enriched doughs. Viennoserie is like a happy place where cakes and bread meet. For some strange reason I find Viennoserie less scary than bread. With bread, there is no place to hide my mistakes. It's flour and water (and salt and yeast). With Viennoiserie, mistakes are still noticeable, but the butter, sugar, eggs and milk make those mistakes more palatable.

The girls really liked this week’s YW Italian bread we baked using a take in the poolish calzone recipe by replacing the poolish with YW.  That will be a tough bread to beat but We though we would give it a go at using nearly the same recipe and replacing the YW with SD this time. 

Both these loaves are based on the basic formula and technique from Tartine Bread.  The formula for both:

500 grams unbleached white flour

375 grams water

100 grams leaven (100% hydration, white flour)

10 grams salt

From left to right, top to bottom

Here's a yeasted white bread, my basic white loaf bread, I added one cup roasted white onions, 1/4 cup scallions, green parts only sliced thin, one tablespoon parsley, and a half teaspoon dried dill weed.

This recipe makes one standard loaf, put once again I quartered it for four mini boules, two to bake now, two wrapped in plastic for later use.

Proofed, egg washed, scored and saltd

With this kind of salt

Here they are, straight out of the oven

Here's the close up shot

Here's the crumb shot

Baked another Tartine loaf with increased hydration, looking for the perfect crumb (which, of course, can never be achieved!)  We had this loaf for lunch with my husband's sister and her husband, Bob the baker from England.  They leave today, so we enjoyed lunch outside in the California sun.  Bob gave the bread passing marks. They return to Liverpool (and a bit of rain) this afternoon.  They did have rain here and in Las Vegas during their visit.