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For as long as I've been an attendee at TFL University I continually see postings galore for both the Vermont SD and the Norwich SD.  Which, in an odd way, had me keep my distance from them both.  Until today.  Mr. Hamelman's Vermont SD is the first, foundational entry in his book's entire section of levain based breads, preceding even the venerable Pain au Levain entries.  I'd skipped over it before.  

This is the last bake that I am making for sale until I am back to being retired so I am super happy how it turned out in spite of a few hiccups. I am not sure how much bread I will be making for us so it might also be a while for that too. We will see. Might have to stick to one day recipes...

Anyhow, this is the recipe:

1. Soak 30 g each of cranberries, raisins & chopped dates in 100 g Earl Grey tea. Cool and add 30 g of kefir. 

2. I didn't do this but the plan was to toast 25 g each of walnuts, pecans and pumpkin seeds. 

It started out innocently enough. There I was, looking at my starter, and I thought, "Hey, I know. I'll just go ahead and reboot the starter into a straight NMNF batch, really dilute the last of the whole wheat out of it, get it up to 95%+ rye. That's what I'll do." And so I did. Pulled 8 grams out, washed out the jar, put the 8 grams back in and added flour and water, set the timer.

these are my first attempt at making English muffins and I must admit, I'm really really pleased with them. The recipe is from tartine by chad robertson.

For those of you who don't own that book, the recipe is a baguette dough that you flatten out on a baking sheet and then let rise like that, I used a 3 inch cookie cutter to cut them out, and then fried them in a little clarified butter for a couple of minutes on each side.

Even my daughter likes them...success!!

Thanks to alfanso and dabrownman and isand66 and Toad.de.b I was inspired and encouraged to take another shot at that whole grain durum, and to push a bit with playing with formulae for results that are more and more *mine*...

The past two Friday bakes were a 30% and 40% whole sprouted 7 grain sourdough breads.   So this wee Lucy upped the sprouted 7 grains to 50%hoping the crumb would still be open by following last weeks method. 

We used 14% pre-fermented flour for the 100% hydration bran and high extraction, sprouted 7 grain, 3 stage levain that still took 12 hours to be ready in our warm kitchen,  We did a 1 hour autolyse with the PH salt sprinkled on top.

Well friends I haven't baked much leavened bread for the last 3 months sustaining myself on southern style corn bread and buttermilk biscuits. Well I got a taste for some soft, pull apart dinner rolls and they turned out great!

I used a recipe from P. Reinhart's ABED and adapted it to my sweet levain:

68g liquid levain

236g milk scalded and cooled to below 90F

363g strong bread flower

1/2T kosher salt

39g honey, I slopped a little more

Just decided I would use this space to help document my various starter and bread experiments.

Starter: Have gone from spelt (not sure why I tried that) to whole wheat, now shifting to rye. As soon as the size of the existing batch is down a bit I will shift to the NMNF method to keep it going.

Bread: Slight shift here from must-be-done-all-right-now to spreading things out a bit. Basically, I am starting to plan ahead better. Start levain, then mix and rise overnight, fold, shape and proof and bake in the morning. 

I've posted these before, the Hamelman sesame semolina batards alfanso-style - meaning subbing out the very liquidy bread flour levain for my very liquidy rye flour levain.  Delivering 15% rye flour (all through the levain) to boost the flavor in this bread.  The composition of flours is; semola rimacinata 60%, bread flour 25%, and rye flour 15% @67% overall hydration.

New to artisan baking, I have been struggling with tough chewy crust that stresses my jaw.  .  Can someone recommend a recipe that uses only white unbleached All Purpose flour with a12-16 hour poolish and produces CRUST that is thin, crackly, and will not send me to my dentist.  I bake using a cloche.  Thanks much!  Jim Burgin