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I made babka a month or two ago using a combo of instant yeast, sourdough starter, and yeast water. This time around I decided to follow an actual recipe! This is 100% sourdough babka using the recipe for the dough from Artisan Bryan. I didn't use his fillings and instead did two babkas using a baklava-type filling (walnut, pistachio, almond and rose water) from Smitten Kitchen and one using a chocolate and nut filling.

After some dispiriting failures (the Paul Hollywood organic apple starter, the Pineapple Juice solution), I have three new contenders: George Greenstein's rye sour, Maurizio Leo's rye starter, and Chef Rachida's interpretation of Kristen's starter from Full Proof Baking. Hopefully one of them will thrive. I'm pretty sure I'll be baking Jewish Rye Bread tomorrow--although that bread is not sourdough. Once I get a viable starter, I'm shooting for the moon. I've seen such wonderful posts lately that I cannot wait to get going.

I've been able to bake some pretty nice breads over the past dozen years or so. I give lots of credit to my oven which provided predictable, accurate and evenly distributed heat. It also retained humidity well when set to conventional baking. But it died.

That oven was installed 23 years ago. The KitchenAid folks told me the expected life span of a current production oven is 10 to 15 years. That seems short to me, but I've been told so many times by various appliance sales and repair people that, literally, "They don't make 'em like they used to."

670g King Arthur bread flour

7g instant yeast (I prefer Dr Oetker brand, but it has no hechsher)

2tsp table salt or fine sea salt

5 eggs, one of them divided

1/4 cup mild honey

1/4 cup canola oil or similar

3/4 cup cold water

Sesame and/or poppy seeds, untoasted (optional)

Combine flour with yeast.

Lightly beat the four eggs and the yolk. Add other liquid ingredients and stir until honey is dissolved.

Hey there! I recently had a 'disaster' in my baking pantry and found moths in my folded up couches!!

I have since washed (ugh) and ironed them - but how do I protect them from this happening again? I have traps now (gross) and all is well - but I'm afraid if I stick them in plastic or something it might get 'stale'? Thanks so much for any advice! 

SSCISME

I've been making baguettes every weekend for two months now. I pulled all stops in this round, I made a poolish and did a 22-hour cold retard. I'll write up my entire process when I have time since I know that'll help people give me more targeted feedback. For now though I'd really appreciate some feedback on my final product and my technique for sealing the seams.

Just a simple loaf. 

Recipe:

 Makes 3 loaves

125 g fresh milled spelt flour (125 g Spelt berries)

125 g fresh milled rye flour  (125 g rye berries)

125 g fresh milled Kamut flour (125 g Kamut berries)

700 g unbleached strong bakers flour

50 g freshly ground flax (50 g flax seeds)

800 g filtered water

24 g Himalayan pink salt

30 g local yogurt

250 g 100% hydration levain (procedure for this is in recipe)

It’s been a month since I last posted… That's why there are bunch of food photos to share! To save time, I didn't type out the bread formulae. Do let me know if you want them though. Updated: Formula for the Kabucha SD now uploaded.

Kabocha Sourdough 

This is a batch of wet dough from which I usually make 4 to 5 flat breads.  Tip o' the hat to Jeffrey Hertzberg and Zoe Francois:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0312649940?tag=froglallabout-20

Frallor are a small single-serving bread typically eaten as a breakfast sandwich here in Sweden. They have become a part of my bread rotation because they are easy to make as an everyday loaf. After I moved to Sweden, I had bought Martin Johansson's Bröd, Bröd, Bröd book and he has a number of variations on frallor. I'm not the best at following directions and often add my own influences to breads which has been fun to combine with the base frallor recipe since it is easy to adjust in a variety of ways. The photo above was from my most recent batch of frallor.