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So here we are...baking again. Thank God. Seriously. Grocery store bread really does suck. Eating that crap through my entire pregnancy almost killed me. Since the bouncing baby boy is now sleeping a lot better than before, baking once again commences.

This was a riff on Eric's Fave Rye. I forgot the sugar and caraway so it isn't really right. I plan on making it again.

My daughter has had a Bun in the Oven for the last nine months, this morning he was done.

My new grandson,

As the elderly grandfather in Moonstruck exclaimed "I'm so confused" pretty much sums up how I feel right now about sourdough starters and levain....

The heart of the question is, what really is levain?   I have read many comments through-out this site that claim starter and levain is the same thing. 

If that is the case, then can someone explain a recipe that calls for levain (1:3:4 - S:W:F) 100 gms or 20%????? 

This morning I baked a variation of Anis Bouabsa baguettes. The changes are minor: 72% hydration vs. 75%; I bulk fermented the dough at 55°F vs. 41°F for the prescribed 21 hours; and I added distatic malt powder. Otherwise, my formula and applied techniques were essentially the same as those in the Anis Bouabsa's Baguettes thread. The changes were made for the following reasons. I don't trust my skills yet with a 75% hydration dough. I'm sneaking up on it. Over the weekend I made a 70% hydration sourdough (or pain au levain), and today's baguettes.

Thiézac, a village 30 km from Aurillac (260 km north-east of Toulouse, France) has a reputation of [color=brown][b]pure rye bread[/b][/color].  Just the sound of it is beautiful to me.

I was inspired by a Banana bread featured on farine-mc.com (link: http://www.farine-mc.com/search/label/Banana). This lady makes loaves that are works of art!

This humble loaf is a single recipe of Rose Levy Beranbaum's Banana Feather Bread, and when I slashed the top I tried a slight, reversed S-curve - to see what might happen.
I thought the result looked kind of like a banana!

Jason's Coccodrillo Ciabatta just can't be beat!  Especially when you need a loaf and you haven't planned a bake day (i.e.

And it's delicious!  The recipe is 100 Percent Whole Rye from Bread Alone.

Mini Oven gave me her Austrian stamp of approval and tells me it will be truly ready to eat in a couple of days. Thanks for looking, and Happy New Year to All!

Susan

Back to work today after a wonderful vacation. I started with the usual poolish last night but for today I wanted a slow rising dough that I could leave all day. I used the usual KAF recipe for baguettes but added a total of 1 tsp yeast including the poolish and half of the salt. This is what I found when I got home 7 hrs later:

Luckily my husband was able to fold it for me mid-day :) I formed two small boules and baked them on a stone with steam. Yummy!

I was watching these beauties actively springing in the oven when I realized that I forgot to add the salt! No wonder they were so active. I used my pizza stone for the first time and got beautiful, crunchy crusts. In leu of a peal I sprinkled corn meal on pieces of parchment paper and slid them onto the stone which was already in the oven. It worked like a charm! I steamed the oven with about a cup of water which was poured into a hot roasting pan on the bottom. Look at that bubble!