Hello to all fellow bakers, greetings from Indonesia. I never wrote a blog before, so this is my first time really.
So ... I finally got an ear (!!) which is good and I'm very happy. Huzzah!!
The "good" loaf is misshapen (the "bad" loaf is horribly misshapen) ... I did not do what I normally do, which is to jury-rig a couche with kitchen towels. I need a real linen couche, which is on my list of things to get. My older daughter (14 yo) was very surprised when I pulled the finished loaves from the oven and noted the ear (lol).
Helen chose this bake. The lead in picture is her crumb. Watching Martha Stewart bakes on YouTube.com was what really convinced us to do the bake... She made this bread look so good and so easy... Good and Easy are two of our favorite ingredients!!!
Here is the dough. 
Helen's comment was that this was a nice little "cheesy" dough ball... looks great! The dough was moist and somewhat sticky. Nice and soft.
I followed the three stage build by the book and only varied from the formula at the proof and bake stage. I shaped a boule and proofed seam side down in my new brotform, then baked in a hot cast iron dutch oven. I did score the loaf and I thought it looked like I had deflated it, but the loaf sprang nicely and the seams burst organically.
Although this bread is the topic of a number of posts here at TFL, I wanted to make it as presented in Hamelman's Bread (as nearly as possible) so that I would have a baseline for future bakes. Since making it, I have re-read most of those posts and recognize some things that I will employ for the next attempt.
If you love pancakes and happen to have a Blendtec blender... try the pioneer pancake recipe. They are really quite delicious and you can't really make a simpler pancake. I don't know if this would work in a regular blender or not.
We are always on the lookout for a good hamburger bun recipe for our monthly hamburger feast. We saw a post by KMIAA about some buns they baked from here http://www.food.com/recipe/japanese-tangzhong-milk-bread-water-roux-493704
That we thought looked perfect.
Totally from scratch loaves! There was no recipe, I used what I had on hand, and went by taste, smell, feel and 30 years of home baking experience to come up with something totally unique.
There's a little yeast, a lot of sourdough starter. I used oat, whole wheat and all purpose flours. Added a little honey and a little turbinado sugar. Mixed in some unsalted nuts and seeds (walnuts, almonds, cashews, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, all unsalted). A touch of walnut and sesame oils.
The above breads were made with the same recipe. As I have written before, I was looking for a good sandwich loaf. The trouble with the round bread is that it is a pain to cut into sandwich size pieces. The trouble with baking a "white bread" that I have had is that it is so soft that it is a pain to cut into slices without the bread crumbling.
So the first loaf was pretty stiff. Upon reviewing the recipe I noticed that the water called for can range between 12 and 14 ozs, therefore the hydration of the main dough can vary between 59% and 70% ... of course the starter can affect the overall hydration and my starter is hydrated at 50% while Reinhart calls for 100% hydration in this recipe.
Oops.
Nonetheless the first batch was good. As I mentioned I gave a loaf to a friend who enjoyed it, and my kids housed the other loaf. A neighbor came over on Saturday afternoon and I gave him a piece and he also enjoyed it.
