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Lucy did finally back to what we would call normal so it was time to get some holiday baking done.  We managed to get a fruitcake baked off and then we did a 25% whole wheat fruit and nut holiday bread to make up for a few weeks of blandish white bread bakes.

I've finally gotten around to baking from The Rye Baker.  I made red rye malt powder, so the Borodinsky Rye, which he describes as the national bread of Russia, was in my sights.  I loved the process of making the scald sponge, which (here) means making a hot soaker of coarse (freshly milled of course) rye with ground coriander and red rye malt, and then fermenting it for 3-4 hourse with the overnight sponge the next morning before mixing the final dough.  The final dough includes some molasses, the salt, more medium rye flour, some bread flour, and more red rye malt.

This is my everyday Pain Au Levain that I use for sandwiches etc. The crumb is a little tight on this one as I am still experimenting with retarding times in my new fridge. 

450gr white flour

50gr Wholewheat

325gr Water

100gr Levain

10gr Salt

1) Autolyse without the salt for 30 minutes

2) Add salt and 10gr water then stretch and fold for 5 minutes

3) Bulk fermentation for 3 hours with stretch and folds

4) Retard in fridge for 10 hours 

5) Bake 45 minutes on a baking stone @ 410f (convection oven)

dmsnyder's recent blog entry "San Joaquin sourdough two ways" (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/53813/san-joaquin-sourdough-two-ways) piqued my interest.

Its been 3 weeks I think this starter may be ripe now (also made a small batard) both popped pretty well.  This is just a simple 123 formula using two starter mixed evenly (one a rye and the other a basic white flour starter).  Levain build yesterday for about 4-5 hours followed by 12 hour bulk at just under RT - about 68f, saw about 1.5x rise around 10pm and decided to refridgerate until am.  7am completed the bulk at RT ~74f for 2-3hrs until double.  Shape and rest for 1.5 hrs then bake.  Nice thing is theres very little tang and the crust is not overly tough, qui

These rolls were baked for Thanksgiving dinner at my Brother in law's in North Carolina.  We made our usual pilgrimage down south and as usual I volunteered to make some rolls for dinner.

Like others, I have been reading Trevor's book and hoping to improve the openness (is that a word?) of my crumb. So I worked on a few things while making this loaf. I probably should have changed only one thing at a time but impatience and all of that. So my changes were:

1. My levain builds: I went from 1:1:1, 1:0.6:0.6, 1:0.58:0.59, 1:1.4:1.76 to 1:1:1.2, 1:1.8:2.25, 1:2.5:3.19. Instead of tripling in 4-5 hours, it took 10-12 hours to slightly more than double. I am rethinking this way of doing things.

One thing you can rely on in baking is disappointments especially in the wake of progress.  Last week I was ecstatic at seeing my croissants showing semblance of good structure.  So going into the next bake I am sure I can improve.  Take extra special care in lamination (note the profile, this is so far the nicest profile cut I have produced) but come bake time I can see but minute 2 or 3 they juat aren't getting the oomph needed to really puff the inerds - as is shown in the snapshot - dangit ! 

 Lucy is back to work but she isn’t happy – not one little bit. She just started to get back into the swing of things when they announced that 800 million jobs worldwide will be eliminated by robots in the next 12 years.  Lucy thought she did important stuff but she is mostly an esily replicable pet and baking apprentices will be the 2nd to go - after pets.

So I've moved half-way around the world and am now getting used to baking in a new climate, but more importantly, with a new oven.  It's certainly taking a bit of getting used to.  I've also started using bannetons for proofing, which give a nice shape & texture to the bread.  I've noticed a chewier crust, but I'm not sure if that's due to proofing in bannetons or the new oven - the trouble with changing two variables at once!

I've settled on a regular recipe for bread with atta flour, which involves preparing 3 bowls simultaneously: