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Today, we mixed and baked four types of bread – whole wheat, rye, multi-grain and semolina. We also scaled ingredients for tomorrow's breads – ciabatta, challah (non-sourdough), olive, raisin-walnut and miche, some of which will be retarded overnight and baked Friday.

The educational goal of today's bakes was to demonstrate the impact of different ingredients such as whole grains and seeds on fermentation rates, dough consistency, crumb structure, etc.

My tradition of Christmas bread baking began by accident back in 1975, when, considerably younger and poorer, I discovered a recipe for cheese bread in Joy of Cooking that yielded a pretty tasty product.  So I decided that Christmas that family and friends would receive a loaf, something I could afford and that was personal.

This is a light and hearty multi- grain free form loaf bread. It is actually pretty simple. I was inspired by Zoe from her book "Artisan bred in five minuets a day" the baking technique is from her but the recipe is a modified version of hers. I have another one that i use honey instead of water. If you cut 3/4ths cup of water out, replace it with 3/4ths cup of honey.

So my friend and I, who also bakes at home, decide to have this big bake fest. Happening this weekend. Setting up friday night and baking all day saturday.  I happened into this 20qt Hobart mixer a while back.  So the loaf total kind of turned into "we can process this much dough, so why not?".  Could be a disaster.  Pitched the idea of cutting the loaf total in half- not considered.  Have to admit kind of pumped at the challenge.  On paper this thing looks a little out of hand.

I baked this panettone for the first time last year HERE  and loved it so much I'm baking it for family and friends again this year.  No matter what formula you choose...do make a panettone, you will love it and want it everyear...and it's really not as difficult as it seems...really! 

Some of the breads I baked on Day 2

The second day of the Artisan II workshop was spent mostly baking the breads for which we had fed the levains and scaled the ingredients yesterday. We also mixed levains and scaled for tomorrows bakes. Classroom time was bits and pieces between dough foldings and during fermentation, but the content was very good.

12-12-10 was a big day for me. 

it was the day i mastered the baguette. 

i have spent years trying. i've rolled hundreds of failures. i burned out the heating element in our oven. there were many times when i thought about bagging it. after all, i have big successes with the batard and the boule.

The Artisan II Workshop at The San Francisco Baking Institute is all about sourdough bread. The first day of the SFBI Artisan II workshop is spent mostly in the classroom. The instructor reviewed the content of the Artisan I workshop and then introduced basic concepts of sourdough baking with emphasis on starter elaboration and maintenance. At the end of the first day, there is a quick review of baker's math.

My 30+ year old recipe card says this is Swiss Egg Bread.  I have no idea where I got this recipe, and I have looked it up by name on the web and found many versions that are similar, but none that are exactly the same as mine.  I do know that, whatever it's true name, this is a wonderful bread.  It makes excellent toast, which is my favorite.  It is popular with the neighbors for sandwiches and for French Toast as well.  I have been baking it every year at Christmas time and giving it away, for 30 years, and it has been popular wherever I have sent it.  I won'

After my baking hiatus, I needed to take another try at variations on my “San Francisco Country Sourdough”.  I made three mini-baguettes and a 800 gram boule.