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I have just returned from a gold prospecting trip here in Western Australia, the trip was organized by my good mate Bob,and it was to be a 2 week away jaunt.

There were two vehicles and a trailer and 4 guys along with my SOUR DOUGH culture setting off from Perth on a saturday morning, we had some rain overnight but the spirits weren't dampend as we picked up the two hire detectors (minelab 4500's).

Hi Again!

Very quickly following on from my last post "Whitsuntide Breads and Other Antics", this is a quick post listing the books that I recommend for my bakery students to source to aid their programme of study.

I am new to baking bread.  I made a loaf of 100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread and Whole Wheat Mash Bread from Peter Reinhart's "Whole Grain Breads".  I made both of them in the Batard shape. During the proofing process, both loafs flattened out. The volume did increase as speciefied. It started out about 2.5" to 3" tall and ended up around 1.75".  It did not have any oven bounce.  I used a sheet pan and steam. I do not have a hearth stome yet. What should I do different?

I started the rye starter last weekend and it came together quickly and was fermenting away so I decided to try to make a batch this evening.  I also made two boules of french bread, but the dough was not behaving well;  too wet, and they spread sideways.  However, these turned out great!  (I followed the recipe from Bread Bakers Apprentice, basic sourdough):

In Quebec the one thing I'm always really looking forward to is, of course, French cuisine. For our daughter's graduation in Montreal we put up in a fairly nice hotel near campus, and went down for breakfast with pleasant expectations.

Heading straight for the croissants I noticed their lack of crispness, cold and tired they were sitting in the display. Well, there was the toaster, and innocently pretending not to understand the warning: "Pas des croissants" ("Nix comprengg!") I revived my lackluster pastry (no smoke alarm).

I really wanted to try once a 100% rye recipe- a dense, moist, delicious bread that I love eating in my trips to europe (not the sponge like clorored stuff they sell in the stores). I decided to give Hamelman Vollkornbrot a try.

I've tweaked the recipe just a bit as I changed the rye chops to cracked rye and I had only 7 oz of it (I've add the rest as rye flour).

Whitsuntide Baking and Other Antics

Today has been a busy day making a range of breads.   I had refreshed both my rye sourdough and wheat levain, with no definite projects in mind.   Given store cupboard availability at the time, this is what I've ended up with:

•1.    Cheese Bread

Hi all, friday a aunt will be visiting us from Italy and bring some rye flour..it's my very first experience with rye cause in Ecuador have not found so...what do you suggest: 100% rye or a mix with plain flour? How "strong" is rye bread compared with a "white bread"?

Thanks for any advice and happy baking from quito. Paolo

I made the blueberry cheese braid (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/blueberrycreamcheesebraid) today.  Wow, was that good.  here's a pic:

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I also started the rye-starter (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/10251/starting-starter-sourdough-101-tutorial) and it is doing very well.  So much bread to make!