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I watched British Bake-off with my daughter last night. It was Botanicals week, and the bread challenge was Fougasse. Not being one to turn down a challenge...

I find the flour here in the UK to be a bit of a challenge in itself, being used to Canadian bread flour. The dough was very, very sticky and took a long time to develop. I ended up with so much stuck to me and the bench, even after 10-12 minutes of slapping and folding, that there was barely enough left for the bread! Oh well, a challenge is meant to be challenging, after all.

Left to right a tag end of a pulla braid, some soft pull apart dinner rolls and in front NY style deli rye take three. I love the deli rye and this time I used barley malt syrup instead of brown sugar and used more onion and caramelized them down. This has made a wonderful sandwich bread.

On this rye bake, I brushed the excess flour from the banneton from the loaf with a soft brush and applied an egg wash to give the crust gloss. Perhaps my best take yet on Peter Reinhart's great recipe!

Thanks to all of you who offered advice after I lost my starter to mold after a long trip.  As I mentioned, the gluten-free starter was fine, so I stole some and built it up using ww, white and rye flours.  It really perked up quickly, and this is the first loaf I baked using it, a classic sourdough.  Thanks again to all for their suggestions.  I will try them all when I go on my next extended journey.  Best,  Phyllis

Hey! I'm back! I just had a HUGE culinary failure 2 months ago and since then I haven't baked or cooked anything until last week. My failure was so huge and heartbreaking that just talking about it makes me sad. I kept myself busy so I could move on but there are always reasons to celebrate so I made these gifts to give to some significant persons to me.

as we pack up this morning to get out of the way of Hurricane Matthew.  On our way to friends on the Gulf Coast.

SFBI Pain au Levain.  2x350g, 2x605g.

Well, after having spent five days in Prague, sampling their wonderful bread (there is even fresh, home-baked sourdough multi-grain bread in the convenience stores!), I came back to my daughter's house to find no fresh bread. So off we go again. First, some more of the seed bread for toast. This also makes very good toasted egg, ham and cheese sandwiches for breakfast, especially with some of the excellent cheese I got at Neal's Yard in London Borough Market - the best cheese shop in the best market in the world! :)

Well, it's finally happened.  I lost two of my starters during a long trip away in England.  I have an all white flour starter and a mixed starter with white, rye and ww flours and both bit the dust as I was away for five weeks. I fed them right before I left and put them in clean jars.  I'll never do that again!  I've traveled before and they have been fine.  AND in the UK, my starter seems OK, but smells terrible.  My niece feeds it while I am away, so I am not sure why it smells so bad.

Hi Folks just a couple of pics of my new starter at work producing a loaf of dubious pedigree with a whole mix of bits of flours used including country grain mix, wheat meal and some bakers flour. 

My previous culture was lost so the new one was started a short time ago, looking good in its infancy.

I've been playing every weekend with add-ins, this is my latest effort. Also the highest ratio of whole wheat to white I've challenged so far.

450 g. AP flour

550 g. whole wheat flour

160 g. type 110 starter, 100% hydration

19g. salt

741 , water

80 g. hemp seeds

50 g. toasted sesame seeds

80 g. bulghur wheat

150 g. dried currants

I soaked the bulghur and currants overnight, they took up a lot more water than I expected. Unfortunately I didn't keep track of the amount of water in the soaker, something to remember for next time.

Since I was focusing on baguettes this weekend, I decided to do a redo of the Kamut Sourdough from last weekend but slightly changed it by increasing the Kamut.

This makes 3 loaves. 

1. Build up to 450 grams of rye/unbleached flour levain in two stages over 24 hour. 

2. Dissolve all of levain in 900 g warm water and add 800 g unbleached flour, 300 g Kamut, 200 g whole grain whole wheat and 50 g dark rye. 

3. Let sit for one hour (Not a true autolyse) in a warm spot. 

4. Pinch and fold in 32 g sea salt.