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It has been 3 weeks since we last baked a loaf of bread proving that IBBA (Insane Bread Baking Addiction) can be controlled to some degree – but I did bake some rolls 2 weeks ago -  for Christmas / Hanukkah.  We never did get around to baking fruitcake and panettone for the holidays either…..Lucy is getting pretty lazy if you ask me

No batards were harmed during the making of this blog entry.  All were proofed in a couche under retard.  Considering how much time I spend on baguette baking, I'm surprised at how many batards were part of the year.  A partial list...

Son of SJSD, Alfanso Style with 75% hydration mixed flour Levain.

Forkish Field Blend #2 with 75% hydration mixed flour Levain.

Unrelated to this loaf, I am planning on baking a loaf for a coworker who has some wheat issues. She's had modest success tolerating a very long-ferment sourdough loaf that I prepared for her (taking pains not to incorporate any unfermented flour along the way), and I'd like to now try an all-spelt loaf for her as an experiment. Thus, I needed to split off my wheat-based starter into a spelt variant, and rather than waste precious spelt, I thought I would make the most of the transition.

Some time ago I bought about 250g of hemp seed flour and today I made the first attempt to use it. Recipe was simple: 20% wholegrain spelt flour, 9% hemp seed flour, rest was AP flour, hydration 70%, 8% of  starter @100% hydration, 5% white sesame seeds, 2% salt (all bakers percents).

Some time ago I promised alfanso to make baguettes once and they are here. Not really very nice, but not too bad at all for the first time. Definitely I have to learn baguette scoring.

I used Alfanso's recipe with a small change that I was using 100% hydration starter, the rest was the same.

I was baking them in my steam oven at 230 dC and high steam for about 25 minutes and at the beginning I dropped 2 ice cubes on a hot skillet to generate a steam blast.

Internet blows at the new house so I started reading about sourdough in november, ordered bunch of shit from amazon and started baking mid december.  

last two batches i've been mixing einkorn into the wholewheat/bread flour and adding stuff like chestnut puree/raisins/nuts.  came out pretty good!

Here are some loafs I've pulled out of the oven from the latest to the first loaf of bread i ever baked.

You are all going to think that I keep posting the same loaf of bread over and over again because they all look so much alike! Ha ha! I promise that they are all different. 

My previous attempt at an artichoke loaf had too much garlic (in fact, I should just call it a very successful garlic bread) and not nearly enough artichoke hearts. The cheese (a mix of shredded parmesan, romano, and asiago) worked really well.

For this attempt, I roasted the artichoke hearts (maybe a bit too much) with Italian seasoning and olive oil. I also used a lot more of it, and omitted the garlic altogether. Because the cheese in the last one was just right, I used more of it in this version. :)

For my third loaf of my personal 50 loaf 2017 challenge, I'm repeating the Tartine-esque country loaf already. It's a great loaf, and I've gotten reasonably good at it (well, my version, anyway) so I'll be baking it fairly often.

Happy new year everyone! Haven't posted any bread in awhile as there was nothing worth posting...until my first 2017 bake, which is perhaps the biggest oven spring that I have gotten.