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 I used K.A. Organic 12 - Grain Flour Blend...Wheat, Amaranth, Quinoa, Sorghum, Brown Rice, Spelt, Barley, Millet, Oats, Rye, Buckweat, Corn.  to replace some..about a cup of the bread flour in P.R. Italian Bread recipe with a Biga...  I thought it's time to start sweeping out some of the Holiday feasting and this would be a beginning!  The bread tastes delicious..it has a sweet toasty flavor.

Sylvia

Time to catch up a bit from the Christmas whirl.  Last weekend, I baked Leader's pain au levain again, from his Local Breads.  I keep coming back to this bread, because of it's lovely flavor.  It is only mildly sour and the rye and whole wheat components add to the depth of flavor.  Since temperatures in my kitchen were hovering in the 63-65F range, it also benefitted from a long, slow fermentation.  Here is a picture of the finished loaves:

I used my Buttermilk Bundt Cake recipe and added fresh/frozen cranberries and topped with cinnamon, brown sugar streusel with a sprinkel of swedish pearl sugar.   RECIPE CORRECTION:  Should read 1 1/3 Cups of Buttermilk in the Batter!

Happy Holidays, Sylvia 

I bought Hamelman's book "Bread" last week on the recommendation of David, Floyd, Howard, and many other TFL members. Of course, it did not disappoint. I wish there were more photos, but as it is the book is full of great tips, recipes, and more. My first attempted recipes were flaxseed bread (pg. 211), since I love both rye and flaxseed,

and Pointe-a-Calliere miche (pg. 165).

all of my baking is done with the exception of some rolls for tomorow's breakfast which i will do starting at 4 am along with some fresh danish and puff pastry

this is a picture post and once again if you are in my neck of the woods come on in and sit a spell

Sunday I made a holiday bread that was pretty much like a stollen.

I didn't have marzipan and I baked it in a loaf pan, but otherwise it was basically the BBA stollen recipe.  It was excellent.  I think I'm going to bake a double batch today and give some to the neighbors.

I made Magic Squares yesterday, which the kids are happily snacking on right now.  We also made pecan-cranberry bars and shortbread cutout cookies, which the kids decorated.

Since the oven was on and we were snowed in, I also made pizzas.  We had pesto pizzas, one with shrimp and the other with chicken.

This topic is not about the auricular anatomy of elves (or Vulcans). It's about scoring breads.

Scoring loaves creates a visually pleasing pattern, and it helps control the expansion of the loaf as it bakes. This was discussed not long ago in this topic:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/9046/effect-scoring-loaf-shape

The San Francisco Sourdough breads I baked today illustrate a more "advanced" aspect of scoring that is alluded to by both Hamelman (in "Bread") and Suas (in "Advanced Bread & Pastry.")

After 1 year from the birth of our son I have returned to baking bread. The steam thing for crust and rise has never worked for me with certainty, and my wife thinks that it is a bit overly dramatic to have plumes of steam in the kitchen. So, I started to get the outer surface of the loaf really wet and every 5 min(for the first 15-20 until starts rising) remove the loaf and re-wet. All this from a cold start.