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This is one of the prettiest breads I bake - Buckwheat Cranberry Levain! I used to make it just for autumn / winter, but it is such a favourite that I decided to put it in the baking rotation today. This time I baked it in cast iron pots seam-side up, and the resulting natural burst is quite attractive. The original recipe was inspired by cmatecun's Buckwheat Cherry Levain, but I've probably modified somewhat over time.

Hello friends! 

Nothing fancy happening here today. I really like white sourdough bread, but, adding a bit of whole grains makes it taste better to me. So I figured if nothing fancy is happening inside the loaf, I would challenge some of the habits I had developed when making bread. Just try something new and see what happens, right?

I was so very happy to see Ru back with us that I decided to make her Toasted Oat Sourdough.  I started of with a hiss and a roar and then decided I should check the recipe (alway dodgy to trust memory these days.)  

Wednesday evening I milled the whole wheat berries and rye berries that I would need for this recipe.  I sifted the wheat flour to get the bran. 

Levain Build (wednesday evening)

25 g refreshed starter + 105 g flour + 28 g bran + 106 g water. Mix and leave overnight on bench.

Soaker (Thursday morning)

After last Monday’s bread was puddle mooshed and refused to spring making ciabatta into sandwich thins, Lucy wasn’t going to have another failure if she could help it so she took another route with a similar recipe to make sue she got a nice loaf of bread this time.

Life's gotten the better of my time lately and Charlie's been well neglected in the fridge.. but thankfully he doesn't mind.. that said I decided to send him on journey and now part of Charlie is baking up a pizza storm in Virginia Beach with a good friend of mine..

Meanwhile, I finally got around to baking last week and made a Tartine whole wheat loaf and made Danni's version of the Swiss Raisin Muesli bread that I've been trying to replicate. Danni - great recipe..

I was suddenly craving white sandwich bread. That’s very uncommon for me as I always prefer whole grain sourdough bread. Then, I figured out I actually wasn’t craving any white sandwich bread but the store bought purple rice coconut white sandwich bread. Easy solution: drop the white flour and sub in whole wheat, put in some purple rice flour (the original version only mix in cooked rice) and include a coconut kaya jam filling. You get something not only healthier but much more flavorful (coconut milk in both the dough and filling!).

This is a small loaf built with a levain made with 1.5 g starter, 30 g water and 30 g bread flour. The levain was left to mature for about 12 hours on the counter at about 30 C room temperature. It was not used at its peak, since I could see that it receded way before I arrived home from work.

It's been a while since I baked a porridge bread so it was time to get to it.  I wanted to add a little sweetness of dates into the porridge and of course some roasted smashed skin on potatoes didn't hurt the crazy moist and soft crumb.  I had some left-over grilled onions so in that went as well.  The dates and onions both dissolved into the final dough but you could certainly taste their contribution in the final bake.

This one makes great grilled bread and is fantastic with some butter or cheese.

There are 2 reasons why I am celebrating!

First is, it's my dad's 72nd birthday and second is...

The one who is typing this post that you are currently reading is NOW a PROFESSIONAL LICENSED TEACHER!!!

Hello to all you wise sages out there.  Long post, but I'm really hoping you amazing bakers out there can ease my recent torment!