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The Zen part of baking is the fact that you can't alter every part of an artisan loaf—although you can get close. Eventually the rise and opening of the loafs seam will go its own way and run off in the direction it sees fit. A baker can only control so much before the bake, but once the yeast begin to heat up and ebullition of CO2 is accelerated we can only relax and be happy with what they decided to do. After hundreds of bakes we finally learn to let the loaf decide what artisanal and craft really mean. Defining it ourselves is like telling someone how to interpret Vincent Gogh.

My most recent bread comeuppance has been thanks to Msr. Calvel.  Someone recently posted a page from his book which had illustrations of differing bread forms and an accompanying table listing the features of each.  Well, it turns out that my "baguettes" are not even baguettes according to the man.  They match his characteristics of a "long batard": size, weight, shape and number of scores.  Waddya know?  Well, I'll still cheat a bit and continue to call them baguettes because I haven't noticed any bread police nearby to pinch me on this.

Today was the first day I really had time to start playing with the new Ankarsrum mixer. I had a small (four loaves) batch of multigrain sandwich dough to make, and we're out of bagels. That sounded like a fair test to start with! I did make a small batch of 50% whole wheat pizza dough on the weekend which was also a pretty good test of a small amount of wet dough. It handled it quite well, using the dough hook and scraper. Oh yes, and I made two batches (2 loaves each) of gluten free 'dough' using the plastic bowl and cookie dough whips. That was awesome. :)

     Not long ago, while making Anis Bouabsa Baguettes, I had a "light bulb in my head moment". Pizza! I'm not sure why it took so long, but Holy Cow! Best pizza crust ever! I like my crust thin and crispy in the center, and thicker, crewy-crunchy on the edges, and this dough really delivers. It will probably work for what ever style pizza you like at your house. 

This recipe evolved over a series of posts, after much discussion and experimentation, but this is how I recorded it back in 2014:

Flour     500g  (All Purpose)

It has been a while since we made pizza and this is a shame after having it again on Sunday.  We have made Giant Strides in making pizza the past couple of years.  Once we had Biaco’s pizza. the best in the USA, we knew exactly what to do take ours to another level that more than rivals Chris Boaco’s masterpieces.

Okay, okay, I know it's not bread, but today's experimenting touches on a couple of interests to do with my bread baking. One, I'm trying out the new Ankarsrum mixer in all kinds of different ways, and two, I bought a bag of durum atta flour to play around with. And as we needed something for dinner tonight, and the garden is starting to produce a few things, I thought I'd make pasta!

I was gifted a starter recently that was kept at 100% hydration and I have been maintaining it in that hydration -- mostly because its in a tall narrow jar and it is easier to pour it out.  I always wanted to try the 1-2-3 formulation but was intimidated mostly by the fact that I had no idea how long to proof the dough and have always followed a recipe from either Tartine or FWSY.  Well, this weekend I decided to take the plunge and used my newly acquired starter and made myself a loaf of bread from scratch.

Since I was on a roll making bread, I thought I would make a simple loaf with just flour and no add-ins. The plan was to have a couple of these loaves as testers for baking in the portable pizza oven that one of my brothers made for us.

So here goes:

I have been away from baking due to an unexpected work commitment. After 6 and half weeks, I couldn't settle on what to make so I decided to make one multigrain flour mix and try different add-ins. It was interesting to see how the add-ins affected the hydration of the dough.

Basic Multigrain Mix

This week, I have baked two batches of Forkish's "Field Blend 2." The whole rye and whole wheat flours in both batches were milled in my Mock Mill KitchenAid attachment (Highly recommended!)

One batch was baked in Lodge Dutch Ovens at 475 dF for 50 minutes (30 covered, 20 uncovered). The other batch was baked on a baking stone with my usual oven steaming method at 460 dF with steam for 15 minutes, then at 435 dF convection bake for 30 minutes. The DO loaves are the boules. The hearth loaves are the bâtards.