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My wife and I really enjoy these rolls or buns made out of the same dough as Spiced Cheese and Herb Sourdough (E. Hadjiandreou). I like to bake them so that they have a crackly crust.

Since yesterday was my day off, and the weather was a crisp 30 degrees outside, it seemed the perfect time to do some baking. I used a recipe that I tried the first time last year with great success. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to use a pate fermentee this time, so resolved to let the loaf sit longer in its fermentation to balance out.

Sesame crusted purple sweet potato sourdough sandwich loaf. Followed FullProofBaking formula as follows with some minor modifications.  

I've been on a sandwich loaf kick lately since Danny introduced me to the whole grain sandwich loaf through one of the community bakes on this site. I'm not getting enough steam in the oven so the crusts tend to be dull, but I'm fine with it. 

In no particular order:

1. Bagels from The Perfect Loaf but I made them with a good portion whole wheat. I liked these, but Maurizio says to bake the sheet pan on top of cast iron and the bottoms burned well before the tops browned so I wouldn't follow that instruction again. 

2. Baby Ruth

My father requested pumpernickel bread for Thanksgiving sandwiches so I found this Breadtopia recipe to try. Of course I didn't really follow the recipe, but I did do 50% KABF and 50% home milled rye flour, the fennel seeds, molasses, and orange rind. I threw in some beer just because I had an open bottle from a previous bake. I'm not happy with how thick the ear is on the Batard - looks like the bread might be a bit underproofed, but I'm sure it will still be flavorful. 

Can somebody slap and fold me??

Ever since discovering this place, I've enjoyed reading and learning all sorts of new things and making online friends. I'd spend hours on my little phone reading article after article...

And then I stumbled onto something I never knew existed, The Fresh Loaf Handbook! 

I was searching about salt and one of the pages was at the top of the list. And it was a part of a larger, most excellent handbook.

Had an excellent bake yesterday. Excellent, because I pushed a lot of boundaries and broke some of my bread baking rules and was still rewarded with excellent bread! I love when that happens, because I get to learn a lot when that happens. As a baseline, I tried to keep the recipe similar to first attempt at Sourdough Focaccia.

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/66162/first-attempt-sourdough-focaccia-79-hydration

Rules I Broke:

I was able to get a nice photo of the "window pane" of the dough I mixed for yesterday's bake. Questions about this sign of complete gluten development come up from time to time, so I thought others might enjoy seeing this.

This is a yeasted, enriched dough. It was machine mixed in a KitchenAid Professional at speed 1 for 2 minutes. Then the salt was added, and it was mixed at speed 1 for 2 more minutes. The paddle was changed to the dough hook. Then it was mixed at Speed 2 for 9 minutes.

It's good to be back! With colder weather comes more time indoors, more warm stick-to-your-ribs meals, and more baking!

I tried to do some baking in the Spring and Summer, but it was just too hot. Besides, I like to be outside when it's sunny and warm! Now that we're getting into late Fall and Winter, I'm looking inward once again, and planning to do some major baking projects over the next few months!