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I ordered the Brod & Taylor proofer yesterday and, received it today!  OMG, I'm thrilled with it.

 It is larger than it appears in the video's..which I love.

 I have folding leg cooling racks pictured to show how they fit in the proofer.  A 1/4 sheet pan 'cookie sheet with extended handle ends is pictured'  and, a banneton, both would fit very nicely.  I do recommend these to go with the proofer.  They will come in very handy.

There's a bumper crop of Swiss chard in the backyard. Love spanakopita, saag etc, and a lot of the harvest has gone on those dishes, but a couple of weeks ago 'calzone' began to beat an insistent rhythm in my head. I began to imagine a filling of Swiss chard, ricotta, feta, mushroom, ham maybe...

I bake SD pizzas weekly, so thought I should be able to wing it with calzone (haven't made it before). I adjusted the dough to be a little firmer, concocted that filling I had envisaged, and voila:

Sending this to Yeastspotting.

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Note: 19% of the flour is in levain

Hi again! I'm back for the second installment of my breadmaking tutorial series. This post goes through the things that you will need to get started. Again, I know most of you don't need this kind of information, but I'd love any feedback on the post! If I have forgotten anything, please let me know. Here's the intro to the post. Please see my website here for the whole thing.

Breadmaking 102: Here we go!

Hello to all my friends at The First Loaf....

It has been a long time since my last post here, upon leaving for France in January of 2010!

BreadLab goes epic

The macaron is a puzzling piece of confectionery. It can either be a good day for it or not. Some days, macarons are just in the air, those egg whites all ready to be whipped to the ceiling and back. But not any dull old day will do for the dainty lady to make her appearance.
She prefers a dry and sunny day over humid dampness, and, however unfair it seems at times, that is her prerogative. She'll only get off her feet and grant you a glance at how her skirt falls perfect over her calves when she is ready and feels like it.

Hi, This is The Making Of ...

Russian Rye

from Andrew Whitley's "Bread Matters.

Photos and timeline from refreshing the "production sourdough" to the finished bread are in this post (** Now with crumb shot **),

you can find notes about the formula here:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/25608/russian-rye-and-really-simple-sourdough-whitley039s-bread-matters

The kitchen was around 22C all the time.

I have been busy baking in the last few weeks, trying out some new recipies... but my only success have come from outside the sourdough arena.  I'm blaming it on the weather.  Read about it on my newest blog post, which is hosted on blogspot!

http://sourdoughrye.blogspot.com/2011/10/bialys-tortillas-pitas-and-one-too-sour.html

Knowing I'd work at home today (Wednesday) I made a preferment Tuesday morning: 

100 G KA Bread flour

100 G 100% hydration starter

60 g water

Tuesday night I made the dough:

All of the preferment

400 g KA all purpose

35 g rye

35 g oat flour

15 g salt

44o g water

30 min autolyse

Was really wet, so added flour until I could get some development. (Think I need to learn how to calculate the starter into the final %s. Was aiming for 68-70% hydration)

15 minutes kneading

Inspired by GermanFoodie's Sourdough Whole Wheat Crackers I used up some extra starter last night with a batch. I added 1/4 teaspoon caramel color to the dough, rested for 5 hours, and sprinkled with oregano, basil and kosher salt prior to baking. They came out tasty, really crispy and surprisingly sour, and are a way better deal than the  'gourmet' crackers available at the store. The only change I'll make next time is to incorporate the dried herbs into the dough rather than sprinkling on top.