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this was a spelt 20% Sd with an overnight retard of 16 hours at 82% hydration

My trip to Paris in June yielded these two useful results:  I was able to meet M. Bouabsa at his bakery for a few minutes and I came home with four 1K bags of T65 flour.  I’m certain that the flour isn’t the best quality as it was the house brand bought at the local Carrefour on my last full afternoon.  Held in abeyance until this weekend.

I love rye.  I love it so much that I even use it to make granola bars. 

Using pre-gelatinized flaked rye has yielded the best results. 

Friends asked me to bake for them so I made a Tartine Style Country from Trevor on the right and for the first time tried a 'Light Rye' from Martin Field's book Sourdough on the left....

Sadly, no crumb as Barney and I delivered the loaves in my new bag which was a bday present from a friend and used it for the first time..ha, ha....

Then I thought, I just up the rye and baked a 200g rye and 300g strong white bread flour loaf today...

It did turn out less dense than I thought and tastes great! Reminds me actually a lot of some German breads!!!

Yesterday I did the 2nd part of my experiment to see how degree of proof affects the crumb. First part was done using 4 deg C  final proof – here is the link

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/57400/degree-proof-retarding-4-deg-c-experiment

Hello everyone.

I’ve been baking sourdough now for about 2 months with varying degrees of success....I’ve certainly learned the hard way that a 100% wholemeal rye sourdough is probably not the easiest loaf to eat!

A bit of a come-on, but for comparison the lead photo is my standard 84% hydration ciabatta crumb, as is this next of a full loaf.

Friends soon visiting asked if I could bake ciabatta for them.  I had to re-aquaint myself. Rather than make my old standby ciabatta at 84% hydration, I wanted to try another option.

Mid-Autumn Festival is around the corner! In Hong Kong, lotus seed mooncakes (and other non-traditional varieties e.g. egg custard mooncakes and snowy mooncakes), stuffed glutinous rice dumplings in sweet soup and fruits like pomelo and star fruits are served. In case you’re wondering…No, we don’t celebrate it with pineapple char siu buns! The thing is, this Chinese festival triggers my craving for Chinese food.