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If you live in New York like me you are spoiled as there is little doubt we have more bagel shops than anywhere in the country and most of them are very good.  I have tried bagels in other cities and usually they taste like a dense tasteless ball of dough.  Since I usually can get great bagels in my town I usually don't make them myself but I figured I would give it a go with a twist of cour

Round one of this fight can be found at this blog post.

The problem I had the first time was insufficient hydration. I certainly solved that problem...

I changed a bunch of things around this time, resulting in a far superior flavor (IMO), but going completely overboard on hydration to the point that it was more like ciabatta than bread. Here's what I did:

To see the beginning of this bake go to the following link and go down below *********************************

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/30755/sd-starter-experiment-how-long-can-it-ferment-counter-goo-overtakes-it

I baked this pie early in October, because it's our very favorite pie anytime of the year...especially when the yams 'Garnet' perfered, are good and heavy with their rich fresh tasty yummieness.

Looking at txfarmers lovely custard pie has encouraged me to post this recipe to share for this 'pie season' and hope some of you might enjoy it for the coming holidays as much as we do. 

We had plans to make a pot of barszt (borscht) this weekend, so I made a rye loaf to go with it.

I leavened it with  both my starter, which I fed with dark rye flour the evening before, and a teaspoon of instant yeast.  The loaf itself was about 30% dark rye flour, 70% bread flour.  The hydration... very approximate.

I never liked cakes with heavy decoration from the bakery. But for my own birthday last week I made a cake with icing on top. This is the first time I used an icing reciepe and it turned out awfully sweet. My boys tried just one bite and they gave up!

Pizza bread made last weekend~~~^^

This is why I call it "Pizza bread"~~~lol

A sandwitch loaf for breakfast next morning~~~

Whew!  All of the planning, all of the strategizing, all of the preparation, all of the anticipation, and poof!, it's all history now.