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I have been making bread here for 22 years. We have good tap water, so I used it for bread, and never thought about it. My schedules for starter were about the same as it the books, so I was happy.

A few years ago, I started milling my own flour, and my starter with the fresh ground flour, was more active. I was happy.

Recently I was reminded that even good tap water has disinfectants in it that kill microorganisms such as those in sourdough. I moved to boiling my water to remove the . Now my sourdough rises faster. I am happy.

Continuing to enjoy the particular high extraction flour widely available here in Switerland aka Ruchmehl. It is very strong, holds a lot of water, and produces tasty and fluffy bread. Very non-white, but also without any grassiness or bitterness that whole wheat breads sometimes have.

I have several bags of semola rimacinata sitting in my closet that I almost forgot about. So although I have been baking a lot of whole grains I have in the back of my been thinking that I’d like to see what an enriched semolina bread might be like, hopefully it is good.

For those unfamiliar Lap Cheong are the Chinese sausages that are dry cured and super flavourful. I haven’t had these in decades and saw them at the local Chinese market so had to pick up a package. I decided to use them in a filled bun to showcase the flexibility of the SD Hokkaido Milk bread dough. For these buns I decided on a whim to use 50% WW and 50% bread flour. The in addition to the Lap Cheong the filling has oyster sauce and scallions.

My attempt at making this bread. There were two loaves, nearly square. They expanded and matted together in the oven. Pleasant taste, good expansion and open crumb.

Lovely rye/wheat rolls, mostly wholegrain. I made them with two preferments, one rye with rye starter,  and the second one made with whole wheat flour and a pinch of yeast. Both of them were 100% hydration,  for the sake if simplicity and easiness of mixing. I let them ferment for most of the day, about 8 hours. 

I also boiled and mashed a smallish potato and, while still hot, mixed it with 2 tablespoons of rye flour and then kept it nice and warm for several hours. 

My husband isn’t a big sourdough fan, so I will occasionally fiddle around with ways to minimize the acidity in our bread. Recently, I was thumbing through the second edition of Hamelman's Bread and was intrigued by his introduction to the formula for Swiss Farm Bread, in which he notes a lack of acidity. I decided to give it a try. 

This bread was made using the quick ciabatta recipe here on the site, link below.

I made two changes. #1 I replaced 100g of bread flour with First Clear to get closer to the french flours. #2 as soon as the dough was pulling away from the mixing bowl, I put it into a well-oiled covered bowl and placed it in the fridge.

Left it there for about 16 hours before putting it on my kitchen table and letting it warm up and triple in the next 2 or three hours.

Here is the link to the original recipe:

I needed to make some nice soft buns for sandwiches and hopefully burgers if it ever stops raining.  I’ve made a version of these several times and they never fail to disappoint.

I really love the grains I’ve been getting from Barton Spring Mills and replaced the rye in the original formula with Rouge de Bordeaux freshly ground Whole Wheat.  I’ve been doing 2 passes through my Mockmill 200 sifting with a #30 and then a #40 to get a real fine whole wheat flour.