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This basically Joe Ortiz' idea. The underlying loaf is a challah (a not terribly sweet, not terribly rich challah, just a nice one). I made up his recipe last night, which produces 2.5 pounds of dough (6 cups of flour, to give you an idea of how much dough). I think you could use any challah or brioche, but I do like the 'not too sweet, not too rich' part. If you go too sweet or too rich, I think you just get a giant cinnamon roll (not that this is a bad thing..)

First rule of baking - KNOW YOUR OWN OVEN.

I think I did until a couple of weeks ago when I finally found out that I have been baking my breads in a not-so-correct oven mode for the past 6 months.

Instead of pre-heating my oven with fan+top & bottom heat, I pre-heated my oven and baked in a fan-assisted (with some heating elements) mode. The result after using the correct baking mode is significantly improved.

The loaves are more open with nicer ears and crumbs. Finally, I have a decent looking loaves.

One of the breads I bake regularly for sale is the Swedish Limpa Rye from Peter Reinhart's "Whole Grain Breads". The word "Limpa" sounds intriguing - but it simply means "round" in Swedish - I asked my Finnish friend Melita. Therefore, of course, my Swedish rye breads are always round.

I made some changes to the original recipe, though. I use less water for the starter - I found 142 g water results in a really wet dough: 127 g is sufficient. I also cut back on the molasses, adding only 37 g. The recipe amount with 57 g is, like many of the WGB recipes, too sweet for my taste.

I have officially deemed this week the start of my Bread Season.  As the weather gets increasingly colder, I can't think of a better way to warm up the house.

Not long ago, early this year (2010) I became obsessed with teaching myself to be an Artisan Bread maker. Throughout my life I have done this frequently. I'll find something interesting and obsess over it endlessly...well endlessly may be an overstatement. It's more until I find something else to obsess about. Little did I know what I was getting myself into.

I had a big bag of carrots (I just should not go to Costco unsupervised), a 3lb block of cream cheese (did I mention I was at Costco?), and a life time supply of raisins and pecans (they seem so reasonablely portioned at the store!). No more costco trips for me! Well, until probably next week. :P

To consume all that ingredients, first, there's this sourdough carrot cake I have been wanting to make for a while. Recipe is from KAF.

This is a new bake of the recipe I discussed in this post.

Minor chages:

• sour sponge was 1/2 cup white, 1/2 cup rye, 1 cup water
• "old dough" starters were each somewhat bigger, using 1/3 cup water each and "enough" flour.

The main difference is that I accidently added about 1 cup too much water, so:

I am such an excited little bread maker right now!  Look.... Sourdough!!!  Thanks for all advice from TFL members.  I will add to this blog later this evening, but for now I have to go finish a painting.

Okay, now that I'm feeding my poor little starter the right amount, I'm sure it's happier, but I don't know if that's the reason for this sudden improvement.  I've tried several new things with these loaves.  

I froze 1/2 a recipe of dough before final shaping with the idea of shaping and baking within a week.  I thawed for 24 hours in the refrigerator and noticed some rise as it thawed.  Let it come to room temp and then carefully shaped so as not to degas.  That was it - no further rise after 3 hours.  I hate to throw out the dough.  Can I use it as a starter or something?

This is a late bake from Hamelman's WW levain, only with yeast being left out. I have done bulk dough retardation for the first time, and it was successful, though it took 8 hours to be reeady to bake following its exit from the 18 hour refrigeration.

Over the past couple of months I have been learning how to bake sourdough bread. I have produced a fair share of pale crusts, scorched bottoms, dense crumbs and one terrific doorstopper. I've spent hours on TFL looking for explanations and solutions (and finding them! Big thanks to all of you!). I think I'm slowly getting the hang of it. Last Sunday I tried my first sourdough with fruit and nuts and it all seemed to come together: it was delicious! As good a reason as any to start using the TFL blog :).