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For the past year this site and my sister Varda, whom many of you know here as an experienced baker, have been teaching me to bake bread.  Varda lives 3000 miles away so the teaching has, obviously, not been hands-on.  But learning to bake bread, as I have learned, can only be hands-on.   The photo associated with my profile is my first and very sorry attempt at baking.  Varda said " baguettes are not for beginners".  Did I listen?  No.

I decided I'd fine tune my Sesame Wheat this week.  The previous results had notes saying "approved" so I didn't faddle much with the formula but I will increase the hydration next time as the seeds gobbled up some of the h20.  I may also see if ti benefits from a liquid levain opposed to stiff next go around.  

I have been busy with work and trying to fit in baking here and there. Took a moment to upload some pics of my bakes over the past weeks.

Here is the barley bread I made. Hydration was 68% and the ground barley took 30% of the flour weight. Salt .025%

Here is a pic of american style sponge cake with strawberry jam and topped with whipped creme.

Last week I made the Oat Porridge Bread from Tartine 3 and I loved it.  I wanted to take that basic idea and convert it to my normal procedures using a larger amount of per-fermented flour and a bulk retarding of the dough in the refrigerator.

This past week, I've been enjoying my lunchtime sandwiches made with my first-ever gluten free bread.  It's been a learning experience, in a good way.  The flavor is pleasant, albeit not the least bit wheaty.  I think I'd like it better without the buckwheat flour but that's purely a personal taste issue.  The crumb is moist and slightly spongy, with just the faintest hint of grittiness.  The texture is fairly close-grained, with plenty of small bubbles of fairly uniform size.

Since late April (last month), I have been baking regularly for my first client. (Hooray!) Customized to their needs, I created the "Bratwurst Roll", perfect for... Well, you guessed it, hot dogs and sausages.

Today I baked up a few 100% rye ("Cocktail Rye") with this cool pan that I picked up from WalMart a couple of months ago.  The metal is a little thin, so I put it on a sheet pan to bake.  After some experimenting, I found 1kg of dough for each loaf fills out each channel nicely. 

Truly The Best Ever ~ Homemade and Healthy Flour Tortilla Wrap Recipe