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My lovely wife asked Lucy and I to come up with a bread to give to a married couple who are also friends, mine too, who just happen to own a very nice hair salon in downtown Mesa AZ.  They been taking care of the girl’s hair, daughter too, for decades.  The catch is, if I mess it up, my girls might look bit odd the next time they come back from the salon – which might be worth it?

For this bake, I used Hamelman's Vermont Sourdough (10% whole rye) as my base, but I made a few modifications for flavor and dough handling. I've made this recipe before and enjoyed it, but I found the dough a little too stiff when shaping, so I increased the hydration from 65% to 75%.

I did this by making a rye soaker the night before, hydrating the rye at 100%, without reducing the water in the final mix. This particular loaf retarded overnight (around 13 hours) in the fridge.

No not mad like crazy whack job mad but mad as hell none the less.  I go to Whole Foods ….eeeerrr…… whole paycheck, to get my normal load for whole grains – some oats, spelt, Kamut and who knows what else from the bins.  I don’t buy anything else there because I can get the same things I buy much cheaper anywhere else.

I am hosting a (hopefully) traditional Greek Christmas eve dinner and wanted to make Christopsomos.  Does anyone have a good recipe they would like to share?

Thanks,

Bread making is fun, even just making basic white bread

Just another white bread, bulk was longer this time,  almost 10 hours. 21 hs at the refrigerator. It was more easy to shape, but still difficult. Liked the result. Trevor's book is being really helpfully. 

I decided to do a test run of my planned bake for next week. For the last couple of years I’ve taken loaves around to our neighbors, this year it will be more than ever, 10 loaves. I still have to work out how to manage that, 2 at a time in my oven.  I’ll be studying Danni’s posts for ideas!

When I’ve used cranberries before I thought it was too much, so this time I scaled back the cranberries to 30% of the add-ins and upped the walnuts to 70%. Total add-ins 11% of the dough weight.

Our oven has been rather busy lately, especially with the Christmas cookies that my wife likes to make at this time of year.  In spite of all of that going on, I still managed to work in three different breads yesterday.  

First up was the Tyrolean Christmas Zelten from The Rye Baker:

Here is a simple formula that I have used after baking a few full-of-add-ins loaves.

30% Sprouted White Wheat 20% Barley Sourdough

Dough flour (all freshly milled):

150g      50%       Whole white wheat flour

90g        30%       Sprouted white wheat flour

Hello Fresh Loaf Community,

This is my first post on the site after reading recipes and browsing for the past several months. I have been really inspired and impressed by all the amazing bread I have seen here on TFL and want to join the conversation. 

The loaf was made using spent beer grains obtained from Somerville Brewing (Boston, MA) and naturally leavened thanks to Stefano, my sourdough starter.