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So bake the bread.

The families--DNA'ed and extended--loved last year's bread and cookies, so we chose to do it again this year. Pictured is last week's baking. It's not everything but the freezer was chock-a-block, so we're starting shipping today to make more room. We found shipping Priority mail gets fresh or fresh-frozen sourdough--with refresh instructions (375°F oven, 5 mins.)--delivered still palatable and tasty. This year's packages hold a loaf of sourdough or Orange Pecan loaf, a dozen and a half of assorted Biscotti and, of course, a dozen of my rendering of Grandma's Welsh Cakes.

Chestnut-Mincemeat Monkey Bread



Baking is getting more festive by the day. The BreadLab is a mess after a trial bake for the X-mas specials that are up for the coming two weeks.

Chestnuts

Hamelman's Roasted Potato Bread, with some modifications.  I used a bit of my sourdough starter instead of yeast for the pate fermente, and also substituted about 12% rye flour for some of the white.

Note the chunks of potato sticking out the side of the proofed dough - have to cut the potato a bit finer next time.

The finished loaf. 

sPh

Hello,

This was my first attempt working with flax seeds.  I got a bag of brown whole flax seeds from the grocery store, soaked them at 300% hydration for 12 hrs.   Separately, I made a 3lb / 1362g dough at 68% hydration using 90% AP flour, 10% einkorn flour, and a touch of honey (5%).   20% of the flour was a liquid levain at 125% hydration, 50% of the flour was a cold flour soaker at 80% hydration.   For the flax seed soaker, I wasn't sure in advance how many seeds I'd want in the dough, so I just soaked a bunch of seeds, more than I'd need.  

Cat and I decided to go for a hike yesterday on Mount Sutro, the wooded mountain in the middle of San Francisco.  Since we knew we’d be in for some calorie-burning, we stopped on the way at our neighborhood pizzeria, Pizzetta 211, a tiny place that is often rated as the best in the City.  Cat had a bacon and butternut squash pie with chipotle crème fraiche.  I had one with homemade sausage, radicchio and Gruyere.  Sorry, I didn't have my camera along.

I have been working through an abundance of whole rye flour and strong bread flour lately so I’ve dropped anchor in the sourdough rye section of Hamelman’s Bread.  I couldn’t quite make up my mind this week so I picked two.  First was the Whole-Rye and Whole-Wheat Bread, baked pretty much by the book.  Next was the Sourdough Rye with Walnuts.  I turned that one into something a little different.