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One of the things I like about this nice yeasty cake is its versatility. You can fill it with just about anything you can imagine: the lazy amongst us will just spread some berry jelly or apple-sauce, the more adventurous will chop apples, grind walnuts and start mincing cloves. And on top, well, just about anything you can think of. The most popular is a streusel, but I've seen chocolate chips, sprinkles and even whole plums. Me? I like the simple elegance of a chocolate filling and sugar water on top.

I've baked this recipe twice before, but this one i wanted to exclude the yeast and extend the bulk fermentation. Actually, this bake was sort of a controlled test that was aimed at verifying whether or not i could bake during my working weekdays, which i'am happy to say: YES, it works!

First day eve, I started feeding my starter one day to creat the levain for the next day;

Second day, when i came back from work i mixed the levain into a dough and retarded the dough after 2.5 hours;

Third day after work, i preshaped, shaped and baked.

Made some Italian Easter bread and everybody helped shape it. I'll have to check on revealing the carefully saved family recipe from a likely long out of print cookbook. I can reveal that it has a nice mix of fennel seeds and lemon zest that I haven't seen in other Easter bread recipes making the rounds.

  After returning from a great weekend at the first ever The Fresh Loaf get together just outside of Boston I ended up with some left over starters that I had brought with me.  I decided to use most of the corn flour/AP starter along with some AP starter to make my next bread.

This one isn't very seasonal at the moment, but I love eating it for breakfast. It's so buttery and soft that I really don't think it needs an accompaniment. The recipe is taken from "non solo zucchero vol.II" where it is called pandoro evolution, but it is very similar to the pandoro a sfoglia from Cresci. 

Main impasto - in grams

sweet starter (50% humidity) 45

dry active yeast 3

very strong flour 179

sugar 36

unsalted butter (soft but not melted) 27

egg 107

salt 3.5

half a vanilla pod 

Compagne is another bread I am recently into...

I just feel so happy when those coupes opened up nicely!!

This is round campagne, and I sprinkled mealy graham flour on the outside.

They gave extra crunchy texture and savory flavor to the crust which I really enjoy.

Here is the oval one!  I like this shot because it looks like A big smile!!  :)

Had a request from my wifes co-workers for some treats so I made some coffee cake with blueberry and and lemon zest.

Cheers,

Wingnut

After seeing Karin’s (Hanseata) great post with her take on Maria Speck’s  Aroma Bread here:  http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/32830/aroma-bread-love-story

We ran out of whole wheat sandwich bread and there is only a crust of sourdough left.  Yikes!  Time to start baking.  Actually I started the San Francisco sourdough three days ago per David Snyder's formula, a very reliable go-to loaf of tangy goodness.  Those were baked first.