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So my friend and I, who also bakes at home, decide to have this big bake fest. Happening this weekend. Setting up friday night and baking all day saturday.  I happened into this 20qt Hobart mixer a while back.  So the loaf total kind of turned into "we can process this much dough, so why not?".  Could be a disaster.  Pitched the idea of cutting the loaf total in half- not considered.  Have to admit kind of pumped at the challenge.  On paper this thing looks a little out of hand.

I baked this panettone for the first time last year HERE  and loved it so much I'm baking it for family and friends again this year.  No matter what formula you choose...do make a panettone, you will love it and want it everyear...and it's really not as difficult as it seems...really! 

Some of the breads I baked on Day 2

The second day of the Artisan II workshop was spent mostly baking the breads for which we had fed the levains and scaled the ingredients yesterday. We also mixed levains and scaled for tomorrows bakes. Classroom time was bits and pieces between dough foldings and during fermentation, but the content was very good.

12-12-10 was a big day for me. 

it was the day i mastered the baguette. 

i have spent years trying. i've rolled hundreds of failures. i burned out the heating element in our oven. there were many times when i thought about bagging it. after all, i have big successes with the batard and the boule.

The Artisan II Workshop at The San Francisco Baking Institute is all about sourdough bread. The first day of the SFBI Artisan II workshop is spent mostly in the classroom. The instructor reviewed the content of the Artisan I workshop and then introduced basic concepts of sourdough baking with emphasis on starter elaboration and maintenance. At the end of the first day, there is a quick review of baker's math.

My 30+ year old recipe card says this is Swiss Egg Bread.  I have no idea where I got this recipe, and I have looked it up by name on the web and found many versions that are similar, but none that are exactly the same as mine.  I do know that, whatever it's true name, this is a wonderful bread.  It makes excellent toast, which is my favorite.  It is popular with the neighbors for sandwiches and for French Toast as well.  I have been baking it every year at Christmas time and giving it away, for 30 years, and it has been popular wherever I have sent it.  I won'

After my baking hiatus, I needed to take another try at variations on my “San Francisco Country Sourdough”.  I made three mini-baguettes and a 800 gram boule. 

I posted this on the end of Floyd's post on Panettone but I thought better of it getting more readers on its own. I could use some help.

My batch of Panettone smelled heavenly as it baked for nearly 2 hours. I checked every 15 minutes after an hour. i divided the recipe in Floyd's post in half and loaded it in two ornamental paper buckets. It was about 1/4 to 1/3 full. I let them proof for 3.5 hours at around 80F and I did use the osmotolerant yeast. They rose slightly and did dome some where I made a cross cut and plopped a dollop of butter.

Hello to every1!

Hope you guys all ok! I have not posted anything in the past few months now but checked out the blogs almost each day. In main time, I had a busy 5 month to open Glasgow's newst 4* hotel with my executive head chef James Murphy, the Glasgow Grand Central Hotel. Anyway....i dont want you guys to be bored with my story, here is some loafs.

Awhile ago, I tried making Tunisian Flatbread from a sketchy set of instructions, and while the result was delicious it was also a total mess.  I got some extremely helpful comments in the forum, and decided to try again.   This is a lot prettier than last time.   And certainly a quick and easy bread to make if you haven't gotten around to planning the day before.   The loaves are a bit less than 8 inches in diameter and over an inch tall.   I'll serve with lamb this evening for dinner.