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I baked some lovely loaves in my oven the other day, and as I slid that smoky, crusty bread out and onto cooling racks, I couldn't help thinking of those old European bakers, who've been baking with fire for hundreds of years. The limited size of my oven, however, has led me to adopt some measures that may or may not be part of that tradition. They work for me, and they might work for you too.  

To make it simple, I’ll break it down.

I have a must-try list of sourdough breads and other goodies that I'm constantly working my way through, yet the list never seems to get any shorter. Trouble is, you guys on TFL keep posting irresistible pics, and the recipes go straight on to my list (and waistline).  O the trials of the home artisan bread baker! And of course, we wouldn't have it any other way...

We had guests this weekend, and they’re bread lovers.  So the bread sort of became the centerpiece of the weekend.

Today I passed my windowpane test with flying colors.

The strawberry season around here starts early this year. We had a nice spell of dry sunny spring weather. That is all any decent strawberry asks for to taste as delicious as they do in these perfect circumstances.

*Edited to add formula.  Pretty sure this is what I did.  Now that I look at it again it could probably stand some tinkering.

I’d heard that freshly ground coriander seeds were altogether different from the prepackaged powder, but… Wow!  Now I get it.  And, as for what freshly ground coriander does to a hearty rye, I have not the words.  But I do have the bread.

This weekend, I baked another miche using the formula from the SFBI Artisan II workshop I attended last December. The SFBI formula and method can be found in my previous blog entry: This miche is a hit!

I don't know what I am doing hanging around a culinary activity that largely demands, and attracts, precision-oriented individuals and the sort of methodical, careful procedures that lend themselves to notekeeping. I am a right side person. I don't keep records of my bakes. I do measure my ingredients by weight but I often make arithmetic mistakes. I fail to take account of variations in temperature and humidity in my apartment.

Recently I re-read the Flour Treatise.  On the third chapter entitled [i]The Milling of Flour[/i], there is a very interesting section about wheat extraction in relation to endosperm, aleurone and bran.  It says that wheat contains on average 85% of endosperm; however, 100 pounds of wheat yields 72 pounds of flour and 28 pounds of feed material.  The article also says that the reason why it is not possible to extract all of the endosperm as flo