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I've been baking a lot lately, as I try to master my Cadco oven.   Some breads come out better than in my conventional gas home oven, others not so  much.   The other day I made challah, and it came out better than ever.   Unfortunately I didn't take good notes, so I'm not quite sure how I baked it.   I did one six strand loaf and the other seven.   The seven was strangely flat and boring.   I guess I need a fancier braiding regime. 

Well, I haven't been active here in quite awhile, but I do still check in from time to time to see what people are baking and to just pick up some tips here and there.

But I baked a focaccia yesterday and wrote up the recipe to post for some folks on a couple of other sites, so I thought I might as well share here too, in case anyone is interested. I'm just going to put it up how I did on the other sites and try to fix up the formatting for how it works here. Here goes:

Notes:

Hey guys, 

With all the family here for Thanksgiving and then some personal parts replacements (my eyes are getting brand new lenses, the kind without cataracts.), I haven't been posting much. So, this is a catch-up on my last few weeks' breads.

Hamelman's Pain au Levain Delicious with the Lamb and root vegetables braised in merlot I made to welcome our arriving Thanksgiving guests - just to fuel them to help making Thanksgiving dinner, you know.

I was trying to get into the holiday spirit so I asked my wife what type of bread she wanted me to make next and she immediately asked for a chocolate chip Challah with cherries.

I decided to use a sourdough starter and followed the Coconut Yeast Water Challah formula I had made last year which came out very nice.  This dough is very wet and does not really allow for braiding, so if you want to braid it you should cut down on the water even though the overall hydration is only 68% most of it comes from the egg yolks.

Before I say anything that's going to totally appall some people and actually offend other people, I want you all to know that I really love this site, and seeing all your creations and reading about your experiences has inspired me to try many new delicious things. Thank you all!

Times are busy.  Went up to Portland, OR to see Pearl Jam for the holidays and ate some great foods.  With only a few days in the city and so much good food to eat I barely scraped the surface.  Some good mentions.  Fressen and German bakery was a hidden gem that I'd highly recommend.  Tabor Breads was wonderful and probably the best bread I got to try.  Tasty n Sons was an epic dinner.  

Anyone when i returned home my computer was broken and now its back up and runnin (just the power supply). 

Now that I've jumped into the world of heavy rye breads and learned the infamous detmolder three stage build I got curious.  If it makes for the best dark rye's couldn't it make for an excellent light rye as well?  

I'm pretty happy with the results.  Tons of flavor for a light rye here.  Nice sour notes in the crumb (more after a day or two) with a sweet and crunchy crust.  Toasts up amazingly.  This is my white sourdough  

More testing needs to be done.  

Hello everyone,

If you are a chocolate lover, you might like these Chocolate Salted Rye cookies!

I discovered the recipe, created by Laurie Ellen Pellicano of Tartine Bakery, in an airline magazine
(published here).  Rye flour in a chocolate truffle of a cookie - how could I resist?

Made some bread bowls today to hold a delicious salmon chowder.

There is no exact recipe for what I did today because it was a thrown together kind of thing from stuff I had on hand.

And the sad truth is, I have never weighed my ingredients, I don't even own a scale (not even in the bathroom), and I very seldom measure, and when I do it's not very accurate. But next time I do this I will try to be more careful and document what I am doing!