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Its 10:26 AM and I have just finished Baking. I started at 04:30. Shortly my wife and I will be off to deliver our bread to an Organic Shop we bake for. Three years ago we started baking in a small shop. We had the idea of baking healthy wholegrain bread. Boy were we wrong. Mostly we just got complaints about how hard the bread was. I have to say that in Malaysia bread is very very very soft and fluffy.

I made Melon bread for the first time today using the recipe posted by minako. We loved them. I followed her directions with only I few adjustments. One adjustment I made was to put no egg in the bread dough and 1 whole egg in the cookie dough. I also didn't happen to have any pastry flour in the house, which I assume is what she meant by "soft flour", so I used all-purpose unbleached flour in both doughs. Here are the doughs when they were ready to shape.

I baked oodles of quick breads today. Pumpkin bread, scones, popovers, and this weird potato-apple pancake from Country Breads of the World, which I recently got from the library. A good book it seems so far. They all turned out well. The pancake kinda fell apart because I didn't use enough flour, but it tasted excellent.

Ahh...finally after more than a 2 week wait, it arrived. Peter Reinhart's bread baker's apprentice finally got to my doorstep. Got it from Amazon. Haven't went thru it thoroughly yet, but it certainly looks great, though i find adhering to some of the recipes difficult at times (as in measures). ;)

I just set a starter out last night. Made of raisin water and unbleached all purpose. Hopefully i'll manage to get some loaves outta it this time.. hehe.. This is the 2nd time i'm doing this. Earlier this year, when i knew very little about making bread, my starter looked fermented, but they didn't produce anything or make dough rise... Guess it's just some other bacteria, not wild yeast. I live in a tropical country. Hope it's ideal for wild yeast and not some other nasty microbiological impostors... Didn't use wholewheat flour.

I baked a pumpkin french bread this weekend:

Pumpkin French Bread Makes 2 loaves Poolish: 8 oz. water 8 oz. all-purpose unbleached flour 1/8 teaspoon instant yeast Final dough: All of the poolish 16 oz. all-purpose unbleached flour 4 oz. pumpkin puree 4 oz. water 1 teaspoon instant yeast 1 tablespoon brown sugar

At least I think that is right.

Today, I baked a birthday cake for Floyd. Our son was a great helper. There's our cake completed. And served... And look! My first baking blog entry on your site too!

Sunday is my birthday. Sunday is also World Bread Day. Coincidence? I think not. After my excessive baking spree last weekend, I had said I wasn't going to bake this weekend. But I may just have to celebrate World Bread Day by putting together a loaf or two.

"Hello, my name is Floyd, and I am a bread-aholic." I went crazy this weekend. Kaiser rolls, a french bread, oatmeal raisin cookies, pumpkin bread, ciabatta, a raspberry cheese braid, honey wheat bread. Not to mention that I made a batch of apple butter, specifically for eating on home baked bread. Next weekend, I've gotta stop. Maybe one or two batches but that is it. Man, I'm pooped.