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From the last bake, all dressed up and ready to be consumed:

This wasn't my first Pain Au levain, but surely the best of the bunch. I have baked Vermont Sourdough with increased wholewheat, and Pain Au levain with Mixed Sourdough starters...Those were not successful as i was struggling with ways to please my starter.. But i loved this one! No wonder why so many TFL members bake it frequently.

I so enjoyed Franko's post on his Pineapple Macadamia  sticky-nut Bun last week I had to give it a go. His crumb shot makes me drool and the step by step directions convinced me I could make a stab at something I don't do all that often. Sticky buns or cinnamon rolls are great but I shouldn't really eat things like that as a mild diabetic so I don't make them often. Let me tell you the effort is well worth while. This is a good idea Franko came up with and I haven't seen it anywhere before that I recall.

Continue my weekend baking with rye bread. This weekend's bake was sourdough rye with walnuts and raisins. The bread has 35% rye flour. The recipe came from Hamelman's Bread cookbook.

I followed Hamelman's recipe by including commercial yeast and skip my usual overnight dough retardation. One of the advantages of including commercial yeast is a a shorter fermentation schedule. It only took 3.5 hrs to have the fresh loaves from the mixing.

I went on a shopping trip today here in Sacramento, visiting some bakeries I've never been to before and fetching esoteric flours I can't get at my neighborhood grocery.

Here's what I bought where, and what I thought of it:

1.  A baguette from Freeport Bakery on Freeport Blvd (Tasted like day old bread made with cake flour, weightless squishy stuff, didn't care for it at all!)

2.  A loaf of Deli Rye with caraway seeds from The Bread Store on J Street (A beautiful nearly spherical loaf, chewy and delicious, loved it!)

Ingredient List for TFL Bakers

A previous blog:
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/22562/sourdough-crackers

Brother David and his wife Susan are traveling back to Fresno after a weekend in the Bay Area to see our visiting brother Aaron from Colorado.  So with the two locals, we had 80% of the Snyder siblings in one place.  That place, of course, was well-provisioned with baked goods, and we had a very nice brunch at Sister Norma’s apartment in Oakland. 

I'm pretty satisfied with these- the lamination worked better than last time I tried - I think I was keeping the dough too cold last time around.

A selection of breads made at home this weekend... 

•1.    Borodinsky

Charmeli are one of the only glazed taralli in Italy and are an Easter specialty. This taralli however can be found year round. Made with eggs and boiled before baking they are very light.

http://turosdolci.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/a-frosted-taralli-charmel-are-an-easter-specialty/