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Dear friends:

Just wanted to let you know that despite my life has been upside down lately, I'm still hanging in there and trying to bake when I can...

So you know I have not given up baking yet...

My latest bake was inspired by Ru007's double fermented oat porridge sourdough, omitting the seeds and nuts to keep it simple. I first tried this a fortnight ago and produced a pancake. I suspect this was due to over-fermentation. Ru007 already recommended reducing the final rise time, and I suspect my fridge doesn't get very cold.

Hi everybody,

I’ve just come out a very busy three weeks at work, no time to bake L It gave me a chance to make my way through all the loaves in the freezer. So now its time to stock up again!

This week’s loaf is a variation of one of my favourite loaves polenta pepita sourdough. I decided to substitute the pumpkin seeds with pecans.

Formula:

Hi all, 

My 3th bread. 

Followed most of the tips suggested by you all and they were useful. 

Bread was soft and the crust was crunchy.  Went perfectly with pulled pork and Cole slaw. 

Will bake this one more often now. 

I am now getting the hang of it; the process and its important elements. 

Next recipe with Polish.  Wish me luck. 

Thank you. 

I had never used squash in my bread baking before and didn't know how it would effect the end result.  I only used a small amount of leftover roasted butternut squash that I mashed up with a spoon before adding to the final dough.

I have to say it really added a nice nutty and slightly sweet flavor coupled with the maple syrup I added.  The freshly milled WW flour and Spelt which were both sifted once along with the other additions turned out a moist and flavorful bread.  I brought one of the loaves into my office today and everyone told me they loved it.

Lucy has been pretty nuts this week going on about how she thinks the wee beasties in SD are really extraterrestrials sent here by more superior wee beasties to take over the Earth after killing us all and using us as a food source in place of the bland flour and water diet they are on now.

The last time I tried to make a loaf of sourdough bread .

I had several issues first of all the dough was so sticky and it stuck to the basket despite the rice flour and wheat flour that I put on the basket! 

Also I was on the clock and got I impatient!

I did my due diligence searching for anyone who had made this bread either without using a mixer or had made this as baguettes.  My search came up empty on both accounts.  So it was high time to take the plunge.  This is my first bake from Mr. Hamelman's book, although I did bake two of his pain au levain breads from formulae posted by someone somewhere on the Web.  This bread has a combination of castelvetrano and kalmata olives.

Just in time for World Bread Day 2016, I received my copy of Stanley Ginsberg's The Rye Baker in the mail.