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So my first attempt at 80% hydration baguettes went so so, produced lovely tasting baguettes but the crumb was tight with tiny holes (see below)

Went to visit friends this weekend and decided to being my Tartine Basic Country Loaf to share. I learned her parents use to be wholesale bakers with 30 retail customers, so I finally had a worthy critic to test my bread. 

The loaf had been frozen for a week or so, thawed on Friday and reheated on sunday. I heated it at 350 for 10-13 minutes and then cut it up. She said it rivaled the finest bakeries. 

It it was a great complement. She also said I can open a store. That is when my wife stopped translating!

I recently got a bag of t85 flour and I had some whole rye from the same mill as as well. While not as open as I guess I would of loved, this bread is great. its dark and earthy and to be honest a nice change from most of what I have baked lately.

700g t85    85%

50g whole rye   6%

150g 100% levain   (75g flour 9%) (75g water 9%)

667g water   81%

16g salt   2%

After last weeks Rye Soda bread the starter is ready! It didn't take long and was so easy, just a couple of days of refreshments (RYe flour mixed with tap water to a paste) and it was doubling in size within hours. I don't know if the conditions in South England are ideal or whether using fresh organic Rye flour is a sure fire technique but it amazes me how easy it seems to be to get a working starter.

I've made similar breads before, but this is the first time I used a Durum/Kamut starter as well so almost all of the flour in the final  product was a combination of both flours.  I also am loving the freshly milled Kamut in my recent bakes.  If I can find a reasonable price for Durum Wheat I would love to try that as well, but the shipping is prohibitive.  If anybody has a good source please let me know.

This month we are calling Retro Supper Month... mid week we are getting together to make a "50-60s" Supper and then having the good old fashioned leftovers... or re-purposed meals to fill out the week... All the meals have a dessert but some might or might not have breads, depending on how the week is going, whether Lucy has visited our kitchens and whether our memories have put the ingredients on the shopping lists...to recap a bit... the first week of February we made...

The other day I made Rene's Rye from the recently released Tartine 3. The primary flour is spelt, combined with sprouted rye.  I have a sprouter I use for salad sprouts and was able to get nice shoots on my rye berries in less than 2 days. The recipe also requires buttermilk (the taste is pronounced, so use a good one), malt syrup and dark beer (I substituted maple syrup and a hoppy IPA) and a variety of seeds.

crumb shot of a SD coffee baguette. I upped the coffee intensity after the last loaf and other than the deeper gorgeous colour, the flavour is just amazing!! i am hooked on this coffee phase - and i have to say, the final loaves are also softer/ more moist. and also, after a brilliant suggestion from DavidEF, have also begin maintaining a starter fed with flour and COFFEE!

Pizza made with Sourdough Starter Discard

February 14, 2014

I ended up this week with even more sourdough starter discard than usual and a craving for pizza and no activated starter and it's Valentine's Day and my wife loves pizza and so I made pizza with the sourdough starter discard.

Thought I'd start documenting my bread adventures, seeing as I'd finally got hold of a set of digital scales. I usually make a very soft sandwich bread, so my first attempt at ciabatta had me instinctively disregarding the instructions and kneading my 75% hydration dough to a strong windowpane...with the result of sandwich bread in a ciabatta shape. So this is my second attempt at ciabatta (in which I meekly obey instructions to just do stretch and folds during the bulk rise).