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I am a retired engineer, a baker of bread, and brewer of beer. This blurb is narrowly focused on what I have learned about the setting of sponge for the baking of bread (updated 6.May.09).

I have a very large supply of Saccharomyces cerevisia, the species of yeast used for baking. It is a by product of my brewing of ales. I cannot match the expertise and baking skills I have observed on this forum; but, I can contribute in this fairly narrow aspect.

Last night I went to an event labelled "Artisan Bread" at the local grange, choosing this over an evening with Elizabeth George and a popular gardening writer. Imagine my disappointment when the "Artisan Bread" turned out to be the good old No Knead Bread! Especially when the speaker put her dough into a cold Pyrex casserole and assured us that it would not stick. In fact she had to cut it out of the bowl in chunks. The good news in all of this is that the room was packed and people got really excited at the thought of making bread themselves.

Hi

I am fairly new to bread baking and have tried a few methods of creating steam in my oven at bake time with varying success (mostly not) I have seen a steam oven but am not sure wether it will do the job. It is an AEG B9820. Does anyone out there have one of these ovens? Is it suitable steam baking etc? Any advice etc would be appreciated.

Regards

Mark

Little Yippees have had all these sandwich breads that I've been testing for weeks.  They are begging for a change.   Here it is, something different on the table for breakfast:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/33569048@N05/albums/72157617619002761/

This is a very tasty bread with a light crumb and nice crunch from the soaked seeds. I would make it again. In spite of the German rye sourdough incorporated in it, which was very sour tasting, I don't really taste any sour. It is a lovely, soft sandwich-type bread with only a hint of rye flavor. I can't imagine anyone, including children, disliking it. There are a number of errors in the recipe. I have pointed those out below, and indicated my experience when making this recipe in case someone else wants to try it.

I completed a batch of Leader's Sourdough Croissants from Local Breads today. I used the metric weights and had no problem with the recipe; everything seemed to be correct as written. I baked one tray at the recommended 350º for 18 minutes but thought they weren't browning enough, so upped the temperature to 375º for the remainder.

Did anyone find the latest issue of National Geographic interesting?  How about Dan Fisher a paleontologist who plays with his food by preserving it with Lactobacteria? 

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/05/mammoths/latreille-photography

Mini

There'll be a better write-up on my blog,
mentalexperimental.org, but I wanted to thank Floyd for a good starter recipe. I'm still working on modifying this one. I think that I have the general consistency of the bread down that I want, but I want a bit more tang. I think that there may have to be a sourdough component to really get it where I want it to be. But that's a completely new bread.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/33569048@N05/sets/72157617583348645/ 

Another sleepless night. I almost thought something was wrong with my dough since I did not expect the fermentation would take this looooooooooong.  Next time I'd go to bed while it rises and not check on it every 15 minutes. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/33569048@N05/sets/72157617581735613/

My seed culture was made with raisins.

Would anyone know if there's a difference in tastes when seed cultures are made with different ingredients?

Once the seed cultures are turned into a barm, will the tang be indistinguishable?