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Was getting ready for tomorrow's Sweetbird Buckwheat and Apple SD Bread bake and for once was organized enough to pinch off some of the buckwheat starter and make some lovely SD pancakes for breakfast.  I took 30 g of refreshed buckwheat starter and added;  60 G of bread flour, 60 g of buckwheat flour and 120 g of milk.  After mixing I let it stand on the counter for 1 hour and then in the fridge overnight for 8 hours.  This morning I took it out of the fridge and let it stand on the counter for 1 hour before mixing in 1 tsp of honey, a large pinch of salt,  1/

In the middle of March, we had a long weekend / short week in Sicily - great fun!

Varied breads - we had two completely different Pane Nero de Castelvetrano (one from a baker in Marsala, one from a supermarket in Sciacca) and one Pugliese I think (well, it looked like it) from a baker in Sciacca

I decided this week to have a go at the most recent (?) SF Sourdough posted by DMSnyder (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/27892/my-san-francisco-sourdough-quest-take-4)

Must admit that the timing on this was the most difficult - I couldn't work out how to get all these 16 and 20 hour chunks in!

When was that again?

I'm always a bit confused about Easter.

I'm never sure when it's going to happen. Last year it was at the end of April. This year it's the 8th! As usual, I visit the Wiki Easter page in an attempt to, for once and for all, understand about full moons, spring equinoxes, Julian and Gregorian calendars and... well, that's usually where I give up.

This bread is an adaptation of my Coffee flavored Rye bread I made a little while ago.  This time I tried to get a stronger coffee flavor so at the suggestion of my fellow "Mad Scientist" bread baker DA Brownman, I added espresso powder to the recipe.  I also increased the amount of onion since I wanted a more pronounced onion flavor in the final product.  If you are not a big onion

http://www.flickr.com/photos/67544166@N06/sets/72157627650212109/

I baked David’s “San Francisco Style Sourdough”.   I used the formula and procedure from his latest blog entry on the on-going experiment (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/27982/san-franciscostyle-sourdough-bread-two-ways-3252012), except I did not retard the proofed loaves overnight.

Ian is well known for his interesting and delicious bread combinations.   I had taken his BPOC SD and made it into an even stranger bread by replacing his Semolina with 5% each; WW, Whole Rye and Whole Spelt.  For his bacon, cheese onion and potato I used; home made apple smoked pork jowl, ancient white vapor cheddar, caramelized onions and potato flakes.  The bread came out beautiful inside and out and was just plain delicious.  Definitely one of the 10 breads in my top 5 (actually it is one of the top 3).

This bread is based on a recipe simply titled Roggenbrot (rye bread) from a cookbook called "Was kocht ma Guats in Schnaitsee".  I can't come up with an English translation for this phrase that has quite the same ring to it as the original Bavarian, but the gist is, "Good things we’re cooking in Schnaitsee."  The entire book is handwritten, accompanied by sketched artwork and favorite food-related sayings of the various recipe authors.