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While I've recently revived a sourdough starter and have been keeping it going on my counter, I've also thought that it should be possible to have a ready to use product similar to instant yeast. Perhaps I'm spoiled by the homebrew shop where I can buy dozens of different yeast packets and even some lactobacillus for making sour beers. So when I saw packages of Seitenbacher sourdough on Amazon I bought a box and have now tried out making some bread using it directly, rather than trying to build a culture with it. This is what the company intends, but so far it's not been smooth sailing.

this bread is so tasty i had to bake a couple more to share with more friends

this is another version of red wine(Chateau Cap De Faugeres) cranberry sourdough using yeast water and osmanthus flower...

a big handful too

my first attempt on a batard shape!!

Most of my bread for the past couple of weeks has come from the freezer, rather than from the oven.  That's a good thing in that the freezer needs to be cleared out but not so satisfying as baking.  It also means that I've had a pretty steady diet of rye bread.  Again, that's a good thing but it was time for a change of pace and taste.

I was bored the other day so while surfing the internet for bread sites I revisited Breadtopia.com and was pleasantly surprised with some of the different flours and grains they offered for sale.  I decided to buy one of the ancient grains Kamut and also so hard red winter wheat called Turkey Whole Wheat Flour.  Below is some information from their website if you are interested.

Just baked my second loaf of sourdough bread yesterday. Turned out better than my first. The recipe was taken from the Weekend Bakery. I love the fact that they use a rye sourdough and some whole wheat flour to bump up the flavour. I must say I find bread baking extremely therapeutic (just as I do with baking pâtisseries, cakes etc) but despite being a newcomer to the world of bread baking I am finding myself enjoying the process more by the week. The smell of nicely fermented dough is so invigorating.

To quote my university hymn “Time like an ever rolling stream” (well, and it originally went on to say “bears all her sons away” which made the whole thing problematic once those of us with the double X were finally allowed to roam the Dear Old Place’s hallowed halls – but that is another story…) and it has been quite a while since I posted part one of this saga. (The rocks and bumps over which the stream has rolled is yet another story – suffice it to say, a long one.)

San Francisco-style Sourdough Bread with Walnuts and Figs

March 3, 2013

I've been experimenting with a 3-day ferment using a biga/poolish (what ever you call it) and finally have some loaves that are approaching what I'm looking for.

Unlike the folks who are looking for "lighter, fluffier" bread, we like nice chewy bread with body and flavor. I've been playing around with Ken Forkish's Flour Water Salt Yeast, and here's what I've come up with.

(Sorry for the fuzzy iPhone quality, but you get the idea...)

Formula and processes:

after reading last couple of week's blogs.. lead me to experiment with new ingredients.

with kiki's help, she gave me this tutorial website on yeast water http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-GmnAD4J7E

started soaking my raisins with water in a clean jar as showed in the video. to my surprised it work wonderfully.. on the 8th day i used it to make this bread. mixed 75gram yeast water with 75gram of bread flour, left it 8 hours in room temperature to mature. 

my formula