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Hey gang. I made some sourdough pizza for my lady the other night, and as I was making the dough I said to myself, "I'm going to make some bread!"

I wanted to raise the hydration level of my basic loaf up a notch, from 75 to 77, and I had extra levain so I decided to add more for flavor and punch by going from 18% to 20% of the total, AND I decided to keep the normal timing of the batch. 

If you're looking for the perfect burger or sandwich bun, look no further.  These came out as good as I could have hoped.  Full of flavor and nice and soft but firm enough to hold up to a juicy burger.  The cream really makes a difference along with the small amount of potatoes.

I love frying my starter! Plop that baby into a sizzling oily pan and you've got fried sourdough. 

For lunch, I decided to take some extra starter and make a sandwich. 

In the pan is a salmon burger with blackened garlic, onion and rosemary. The kitchen had some extra basil so I plucked a few leaves and threw em in!

I baked a sourdough loaf using Kamut for the first time.  It wasn’t the easiest thing to find here in Toronto, but I recently came upon a new organic market that carries Kamut grown in Canada.  The colour the whole grain flour is a lovely butter like yellow.

This is a 20% Kamut, 80% strong white flour.  9% pre-fermented flour.

Really proud of the rise and crumb on this one - I had been on a quest for a light, springy whole wheat loaf as I remained stubbornly opposed to the fact that 100% whole wheat meant necessarily dense and heavy crumbs. 

Pleased to say this recipe worked out well (adapted from Full Proof Baking's wonderful blog) - she recommended doing a cold, overnight bulk fermentation and I think that really did the trick here. Very minimally handled overall. 

Recipe as follows:

50% Red Fife

50% Whole Wheat White Flour

I have been baking often but have settled on a handful of breads that I most enjoy eating. I have posted on all of them here over the years, in some cases multiple times documenting minor variations. But this week I saw a bread on another online forum that grabbed my attention and instantly went to the top of my ridiculously long "To Bake" list. It turns out that my intuition was spot on. This turned out to be an extraordinarily delicious bread.

Buttermilk-Spelt Sourdough Bread

from Cecilia Agni Hadiyanto on Facebook

This is my most successful attempt at Ken Forkish’s Overnight Country Brown (30% WW, 70% KA AP). I followed his formula and directions, with only a few deviations. 

I've posted before about using a tiny amount of commercial organic yeast in my sourdough bread recipes, and got some good feedback and information on that post.  I've continued to tweak my methods and have arrived at what I think is a happy compromise, making the most of the benefits of both sources of yeast in the same recipe.  I'm just using a pinch of organic yeast in my everyday sourdough recipe, and have probably baked some of the best bread I've ever made, even with skipping an autolyze and pre-shape steps.  I plan on trying this method next with a higher percentage of

On a whim, I decided to see if I could bulk ferment baguette dough in the fridge overnight and have it come out perfectly fermented for shaping in the morning. Well, I think I came pretty close honestly!

Recipe is below for two 180g baguettes:

KA Bread Flour........220g

Lukewarm Water.....143

Instant Yeast...........2g

Salt.........................4g

Method:

9pm - Mixed all ingredients and kneaded by hand for one minute until there was some gluten development. Moved to the fridge for bulk fermentation.

Well I took a few years off there! Hey everyone, nice to see the pros still baking on TFL. I have learned so much from you guys over the years. 

I am baking again now that I'm settled in San Jose, California, and no longer a monk. Let's get to what you want to know...

I tried to start my own starter without luck! Even after 5 different test trials with all different flours and two types of water... so a neighbor luckily shared some healthy bugs with me because I was getting impatient. (Monks get impatient???)