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Well this is a redo of last week's bread with a few changes. Unfortunately, I don't feel like this was an improvement. 

The recipe is the same as last week with the following changes:

I sprouted the 75 g of Buckwheat groats rather than toasting and soaking them. 

I reduced the amount of water by 50 g. 

I added 1tsp of toasted sesame oil.

Bulk fermentation was about an hour shorter as the dough rose faster this week.

Proofing in the fridge was longer because I slept through my planned bake time.

Finally, my grape starter developed sufficient life to inspire enough confidence to bake with it. So I baked the Biga Acida loaves that I found on BakingMad.com. Success and lots of flavour!

This bread was literally unplanned. I had started doing my builds of levain for this weekend's loaves when my daughter asked if I could make a couple of loaves for a friend that was in need. She wanted something healthy with seeds. So after weighing out the seeds I needed for my other loaves, this is what I came up with.

Levain - I took 30 g of my starter from the second build and fed it 30 g wholewheat, 120 g unbleached flour and 120 g warm water. I let it rise for about 6 hours. 

I recently found some fresh semolina flour at a local market so I decided to try out the semolina formula in Tartine Bread. This was my first time baking with semolina and I found it to be very pleasant -- the dough smelled almost buttery and was very easy to handle despite the relatively high hydration (~80%).

I stayed fairly true to the recipe, with the following changes:

Time to gather your notes and ingredients for our posted challenge: Details and rules (not) are found in Dabrownman's original post, here:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/49467/nocvember-17th-homemade-bread-day

Looking forward to it!

Cathy

Lucy being German at heart, has been in the dumps since the election on Tuesday.  First she got blindsided by Brexit earlier this year and now by Trump so...... she wanted to throw off the hurt feelings and make one of her favorite breads in a new way - taking it to the next level – just to move on….. into the world the way it is now.  Be calm and carry on!

Hamelman Olive Levain Baguettes redux.

What happens when I get inattentive during a step.  In this case, the seam wasn't sealed tightly on this one, or more likely didn't go on the baking peel seam side down.   Or both!  Fortunately these are few and far between.  It will still be a tasty treat.

From the top angle view - all seems to be dandy.  This time I used better quality olives so the taste should be improved as well as upped the hydration by about 2-3%.  I really can't say with any accuracy, I just added a few extra grams of water.

I am presenting at many IT conferences and other speakers know me for baking bread. Yesterday evening we had a welcome reception dinner for a conference in Bulgaria and I proposed to the organizer that I will provide all bread for the dinner.

To pair the bread with the menu I prepared 3 loaves:

- Butternut Squash bread with pumpkin seeds

- Oat porridge sourdough with flax, sunflower and sesame seeds

- Olive bread with Mediterranean spices

I purchased myself some w/m spelt whilst my wife was shopping in Fremantle and this is what I did with it

The book "Sourdough" by Sara Owens was a surprise gift in more ways than one earlier this year.  First, I was not expecting it, had not asked for it, and in fact, did not know about it.  Second, it has proven to be a wonderful, inspiring and tasty addition to my library!  Others have already posted my favorite bread from the book, the Honey Oatmeal Spelt recipe, so I decided, finally, after what must be two years of lurking, baking, and silence since my last blog entry, to post something for once.