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This is my version of Pain de Campagne.  It took three attempts before I was satisfied with the result.  The first two loaves were too sour for my liking.  It was only when Josh suggested that I use more starter in my levain build, instead of less, that I finally got the result I wanted.  :)

Levain

A couple months ago I took a Viennoserie class at the San Francisco Baking Institute (SFBI). The students were mostly home baking hobbyists like me, but there were a few professionals too. Most of the 40 hours were spent hands-on in the pastry kitchen. The high quality of instruction combined with the excellent equipment and facilities were totally worth the tuition. The curriculum was designed with a professional production environment in mind so each batch of dough was in the 5-6 kg range and were mixed in large stand mixers. All the lamination was done using a dough sheeter.

It's Frisbee Time

Lucy was so disappointed that the dough stuck to the new basket she decided a re-do was in order since we had the same powerful levain, fierce really, the same flour mixes and nothing but time on our hands

This Easter we are having smoked baby back ribs and smoked chicken with pasta and potato salads, Cole slaw and smoked BBQ beans.  Not our usual Easter fare but that means we needed a good whitish SD bread to replace the usual Wonder Bread that comes with Kansas City, MO  BBQ.

I've been working on the same formula for a while.  I think I'm slowly getting there.

Fresh pesto.

Ready for the freezer and a week's worth of toast.

Happy Easter!

A little bit late but I wanted to tell you about Italy Depot.com where I just bought 5lb of the above flour, shipped free! I checked the site this morning and the price was $12.95, and they have larger sizes and other types. I am anxious to try Roberta's pizza dough since reading the NY Times article posted on TFL and didn't want to buy a huge amount of OO flour. It was securely packed and arrived quickly and the site is easy to cope with. A.

So last year when this little project began I wanted to work with untested formulas and move on week to week.  I've decided that this year I'll go back and fine tune some of my favorites that can sure use a little tweaking.  I'm sure I'll throw together some new formulas as well but this sounds like more fun.

Here is the Italian Easter bread we found online to bake with the GMA’s, also less widely known as The 3 Twisted Sisters.  http://crumbsoflove.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/pizza-civitavecchia-italian-easter-sweet-bread/

Hi,

I've been baking bread for a year or two now. This site has been a great resource and although I haven't commented very much I have absorbed a great deal of knowledge from many of the posters here.

I've made a few nice loaves recently, so I thought I would share some photos. More importantly, I'm starting to feel more confident in my ability to produce consistent results, which is a great feeling. I'm starting to understand how the dough is supposed to feel, and what to expect at various stages.