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Recently a customer asked me to bake a fig anise bread.   She had bought a loaf from Standard Baking in Portland Maine, and loved it, but doesn't get up there often.   At first I was a little reluctant to go down this road, as I thought figs?   anise?   really?   but then decided to see what I could come up with.   A search on TFL revealed that there was just such a bread in Nancy Silverton's La Brea book.    As this has been on my list forever, I bought a copy, procured some dried black mission figs and anise seed,

after three long operations and weeks lying flat on my back. Now I can read your news; should be able to bake again in a month or so. hurrah!

I decided to experiment and try a new flour for me, it is half the price of KA AP Flour and what could be the worst thing that could happen. This loaf was based on Ken Forkish's "Saturday White Bread" formula with addition of three types of olives, rosemary and lemon zest.

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Hi all, does anyone have any tips to repair my cloche? The bottom part has cracked into  2 pieces, its a clean break so wondering whether there is any way to stick them back together with a non toxic heat resistant glue.

Is this my fault for placing the cloche in a hot oven from cold or is this a defective cloche?

I've only used it 3 times! So iit works out at £15 per loaf - joy!!!

Got quite a bit of spent grains from a friend who is into Homebrewing and decided to try making a bread out of it. The grains (mainly barley) were roughly cracked using a hand grinder before being heated for about 2 hours to create a malt extract from them. This means that they are no longer sweet but still lend a nice texture to the bread.

I haven't been baking nearly as much as I would like, but I'm making an attempt to bake on Sundays this winter.  I feel like any skill I have obtained since I started making bread has been lost, and gaining my skill set back might prove frustrating.  My girlfriend loves bread and I don't mind lavishing her with fresh treats.  A favorite bread of mine is ciabatta, but I've never made an attempt to add any cheese or mushrooms to the base bread.  I decided to use dried shiitake mushrooms reconstituted in water and baby bella mushrooms.

Made with 35% fresh milled local Hard Red Winter Wheat (Hollis).  I miscalculated with the olives and after pitting came up short but proceeded.  I will post my formula but I'd double this for sure.  The addition of an herb could also be nice but my olives were a mix of three green varieties brined with garlic and oregano.  Had I used enough maybe I wouldn't need any herbs.  I'll find out next time around. 

Well just because I haven’t been blogging doesn’t mean I haven’t been baking.

There’s just been a lot of “stuff” happening in my life and I haven’t had the energy (or time) to pretend I care about photography at all – and I know that’s what everyone wants – the pictures.  But with winter fast approaching, I’ve got a little relief from the yard work – and a little more time.

I’ve been working hard on my croissants and if I’m ever happy with them, I’ll let you all know.

This Remberance Day weekend I have reminded myself of how to bake bread.  It's been a little over a month and a half since I baked.  Having the business transferred from my parents to me takes a lot more paperwork, legal and technical work than one would imagine.  Quite draining actually.  Now that things have settled down, I decided to tackle a challenge that I have had in the recent past with whole wheat loaves.  Those of you who helped me, know of my frustrations with higher percentage whole wheat bread attempts.  Looks like I was simply over proofing and ov

As we come upon the last weeks of the market I have now missed a few but next week will be 20. Had all plans set to make an olive bread but the cost of nice olives made me bail on a large batch and simplify.  Maybe had I thought ahead I could get some wholesale prices but I didn't.  So I threw together a formula for a Spelted Sourdough that I'm quite pleased with the results.  The dough is lovely smooth but quite slack and was just super fun to shape.  I also continue on my quest to learn and make 100% ryes which may or may not be going so well.