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     I thought a baguette would really be a nice true first foray into true "baking" for myself.  All of the time I hear! I don't bake from people.  I am a little shocked at how loose the term bake is used.  I can make cookies, banana breads, and other recipes in the oven. I wanted more depth.  I mean baking that requires thought, technique, and skill.  I love the beauty and texture of good bread.  It is like art.  Perhaps, this is a way I can be creative and artistic to create something pleasing to both the palate and the eyes.  

This is my second bake of this bread in the last few days.  I had made a batch of dough to go with my wife's football party eggplant parmesan and chicken parmesan with homemade sauce, meatballs and sausage.  She also had made some fresh croissants with chocolate inside and all I was going to do was make some bread.

I've been curious about trying the Antimo Caputo Tipo 00 Rinforzato flour.  

A few weeks ago I called an Italian grocer 'Taylor's Market' located in CA and asked if they would repackage their Caputo Rinforzato flour into smaller 5 lb bags.  They were very obliging.  Their shipping is very reasonable for me.

I will admit right here and now that I have been a BAD sourdough caretaker! My sourdough starter spent most of the summer in the fridge being fed intermittently. But now there's snow on the ground and I wanted some sourdough pancakes so that I could sample some home made wild raspberry syrup. My starter was like "whatever...", so I figured that since I use sourdough starter for flavor rather than rising power for pancakes, I'd give it a shot. And they were delicious pancakes and the raspberry syrup was to die for, but I noticed that my starter had very little action to it.

Lately I've been so focused on baking what I know consistently and well that I haven't tried new things.   Fortunately I am still a regular browser (if less frequent commenter) on TFL and there is a lot of new out there.   Josh (golgi170) has been posting one interesting bread after another, and I haven't had a chance to start let alone catch up.   Yesterday I decided to try his Sprouted Wheat Levain, that of the beautiful ear.    Wh

Finally I have been able to bake something decent using my starter. I think Im getting there. 

Saludos!!

Here some fotos of the Norwich Sourdough following the next recipe http://www.wildyeastblog.com/2007/07/08/my-new-favorite-sourdough/

Just to say, flavor, crust and crumb, delicious!!

GyG

I'm new to this site, just found it yesterday while I was surfing around looking for sourdough ideas while my yeast bread rolls were rising. Love the site and now on to my comparison.

I made a batch of my favorite white bread yeast rolls. I wanted to see how different scoring and glazing would affect the crust of the rolls. Specifically, I'm looking for a very tender crust that's easy to chew without messing with the texture of the actual bread.

Spelt Squares
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total flour: 924 (86% spelt, 14% white) with an extra build this can be 100% spelt if desired
total h20: 715 (77% hydration)

Levain: 6-8 hours
60 White Starter (100%)
100 Bread Flour
38 Spelt
138 H20
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336 (168 prefermented flour

Dough:
756 g Spelt
547 g h20 (hold back 100 g)
20 g Salt
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1323
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Cramique 

Cramique (Fr) or Kramiek (Dutch) is the name given to a type of rich, sweet breakfast bread with raisins such as sold in traditional bakeries in Belgium.  The following is the traditional recipe such as it’s been used for the past 100 years or so.  Some variants exist and I’ll briefly mention those at the end of the recipe.