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In the past three days we've been baking: a first try at Vollkornbrot, three loaves of sourdough, and 38 dozens of cookies including Welsh Cakes, Date-Nut Pinwheels, Tart Cherry and Pecan Biscotti, and Tangerine Spritz. Except for the spritz, I creamed all the butter and sugar by hand, before adding the rest of the liquid ingredients. Result: wielding the wooden spoon I got a blister on my little finger! Geez! do I have to wear work gloves to mix dough too?

So last night I threw out over 5kg of dough. After making 2 succesfull attempt at making a variation of based on Shiao-Ping's Artisan III class at the SFBI:

"Miche, Sourdough with Two Levain Builds: 230% in Final Dough"

I decided to increase the recipe to about 5kg of dough... as I have an office party to bring bread to tomorrow...

The first is that I'm no longer pregnant. I actually gave birth to my baby boy on October 31st. :D

Hi All
Gardening Season in New England is just about over (a few herb plants left that I can use) and now onto Baking! We'll be focusing on breads for the next few weeks. Always happy to post recipes if anyone is interested, just let us know.

Hello

I am making the 80% ryebread and his soaker asked for whole rye flour, the question is is it just rye flour or are they rye berries are cracked rye berries can some one give any suggestion

Thanks

Hans

Paddyscake's Guinness Gingerbread looked sooo good, I had to try it!  I use Black Bart Stout, other than that, it is the same.

This was fabulous!  Sweet at first taste with a great bite that is not too spicy and so moist with a real depth to it.

My picture of the cake on the plate somehow didn't load onto the computer, but I just took a picture of the last remaining bit:

I jumped ahead in my BBA challenge to make this stollen since I figured it makes a lot more sense to have it now, rather than ... next Jan. It's yummy, with all that dried fruits, how can it not be?!

This weekend we decided to bake a bunch of bread to give to the neighbors for Christmas.  We decided to warm up the wood fire oven Sat night.  SInce it is cooler we tend to fire it the day before and cook meat or something then bread the next day after the oven has been refired.  So last night we cooked a pork loin.  We have had good luck with birds (chickens or turkeys) but not with beef.  So we thought we would try pork this time.  It did not brown as nicely as I would have liked but it tasted wonderful.  So we baked that last night.  Then this morn

For those who are keeping score, I moved from the USA to South Africa in late October to work on a project being managed by my employer.  After spending a week in a hotel and a month in a temporary apartment, my wife and I moved into a leased house on December 1.  We're feeling fairly settled now and can find our way to several different supermarkets, gas stations, restaurants and the like.  It's a different landscape, and I'm not just talking topography.  Still, we're learning to navigate our way around without creating unnecessary hazard to ourselves or others.

I baked the buckwheat batard from Leader's Local Breads yesterday.  This is my third or fourth attempt at this bread, and by far the most sucessful.  The first time I tried this bread I was unaware of the errors in the formula (if you do a search of the site you will find posts on the errors of this book) and ended up experimenting just trying to get a buckwheat starter that I could work with.  The flavor is so unique that I did not give up and have come up with a formula that works for me.  For the buckwheat levain I used 75 grams of my liquid levain that is approximate