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I love baguettes. I love them for the challenge but even more for the complexity of flavor that can be developed. My two favorites are Hamelman's poolish baguette and Sam Fromartz's Parisian baguette that gains so much from the addition of just a small amount of whole wheat flour and sourdough.

Hi all!

I am excitied to say that although I have lurked around here and posted on occasion, this is my first blog entry, and my first picture post!

Last night I decided to give the poolish baguettes from BREAD another try, and I am fairly happy with the way they turned out. They arent quite as nice as some of the ones I see on here, but I am fairly new to the bread baking at home thing, and I feel I am progressing pretty fast. Anyways, here goes:

I was so inspired by Beth Hensperger's recipe for making a 'Shallot and Poppy Seed Braid' it's in her book 'Baking Bread Old and New Traditions'.

I am after a good european bread book with good european recipes. I have been baking bread for a few years now and have a number of good american bread books. Does anyone have any suggestions on what I should get and why?

thanks

Hi everybody

That it's! now that I know how to pin my photos I can try and write my own blog !  after one year on TFL it was about time. My thanks to Ananda who helped me to sort the problem photo uploading.

I apologise already..I don't really seem to be able to create such nice and well thought out entries as some of the fellow bakers here. They always end up having to be wedged into my life and suffer from such rough treatment.

So, here are pictures from my second try at the baguettes. I feel they were slightly more succesful than the first ones but still just so far from GOOD....they tasted nice, but they also just haven't tasted the way I remember baguettes tasting in Paris.

This time, I wanted bread that brings more aroma and character of its own, something that can accompany a simple meal or to be used for a not too spiced sandwiches.

The combination of black olives and thyme is not new and since I love olives in both meals and sandwiches (depend on the dishes) I decided to have bread with it.

When I opened the fridge to get the olive paste, I saw a jar of dried tomato next to it. Olives and tomato is a good combo as well and I added the tomato paste to the mix but to keep the olive base of the bread I added only small amount of it.

Hey All,

Just wanted to share with you my bake from 4/15/10.  70% rye with caraway seeds.  I'll post my recipe shortly.  Enjoy.

Tim

Total Recipe
2310g Organic Rye Flour (70%)
990g Bread Flour (30%)
2574g Water (78%)
60g Kosher Salt (1.8%)
20g Active Dry Yeast (0.6%)
52g Caraway Seeds (1.6%)
6000g Total Dough (approx)

So, on a mad impulse I bought a bread mill, the Schnitzer Pico, and it arrived at the same time as Hamelman's "Bread", Reinhart's "Whole Grain Breads" and Leader's "Local Breads" (I think I might have overdone it on the books). Sourdough is fermenting, a mother starter is in the making and I ate my a whole lot more soaked bran in my first home-ground muesli concoction (oats, wheat bran sifted from the flour that fed the sourdough and amaranth/quinoa) this morning (delicious- no more horrible bitter whole wheat aftertaste).