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Today I experimented with a recipe from the Sullivan Street Bakery Cookbook that I borrowed from the library. Jim Lahey’s techniques are very different from anything I have done before. Besides his method for propagating  a biga, I tried his high speed mixing technique. I think it worked quite well, but I am waiting for it to cool enough to cut into it.

Since we are all about the bread....

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-wheat-baking-insight/bakers-farmers-struggle-to-make-any-dough-on-poor-wheat-crop-idUSKBN1E518Y

   Coming in at 65% fresh milled high extraction Durum flour, this one is bursting with flavor.  The addition of the porridge and ricotta cheese takes it over the top.

This is the perfect bread for some home made tomato "gravy" and or grilled with some good olive oil and melted cheese.

On October 12, 2009 you could have bought 55,000 bitcoins for a whopping $55.22 using PayPal from Sirius.  Today you would have $1 Billion - with a B.  Never ,in the history of mankind, has so much wealth been created so fast by doing so little.  This explains why all the naysayers are so horribly wrong about the times we live in today.  Never ever, at any time in the 4.6 billion years that the earth has existed ,has it been so great and wonderful to be alive ......as it is today.

Finally, I achieved what I've been struggling toward for some time; 100% wholewheat bread which is pillow soft and tasty.  A big step was receiving The Bread Bible for my birthday recently - while I haven't tried any of her recipes (which all seem to use white flour, with the odd dash of wholewheat) the explanation of techniques has made a big difference.

So, the ingredients, which are similar to what I've been using to date:

This is different from the traditional challah. From a baker's perspective, the sprouted wheat challah has many things going for it. The use of sprouted wheat and there is no other flour to help or mask its true nature. It is enriched with only egg yolks, producing a tender and creamy crumb. Lastly, no butter is added, making it suitable for a kosher diet. I think the store-bought sprouted wheat flour shines and finds its true expression in the making of this challah loaf, a recipe from Bread Revolution by Peter Reinhart.

Here is my fruit and nut sourdough.... not the rise I wanted as I meant to retard it only overnight but totally forgot it was in my fridge! Got home from work to a very over-proofed dough, however, the crumb and the taste were still pretty good.

450g white bread flour

50g wholewheat flour

100g levain

350g water

50g walnuts

50g pecans

50g hazlenuts

100g raisins

I am continuing my quest for a more open crumb and oven spring using some of Trevor Wilson and Dabrowman's methods. We got "lovely" weather (pouring rain till 3 am which then froze and turned into snow on top of the ice). That made travel rather treacherous so I decided to stay home and bake bread. New things that I tried this time:

Hybrid loaf using Lammas Fayre Medieval Peasant flour. (Previous attempt with all LFMP flour tasted good but quite cakey- not nearly as light as that produced by Lechem)