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I came across this purple sticky rice while stocking up on some pantry dry goods recently.  I've never heard of it before, but it has a nice rich flavor, and I've enjoyed working it into my recent breads.  

My first go-round was a 50-50 white/whole wheat loaf 

I think amounts were about

200g Maine Grains hard red spring whole wheat

200g KA special patent 

~3tsp salt

50g starter

@ 80% hydration I think

I needed more bread, so what’s new?  Wanting some whole grain bread though I decided to use some spelt with the whole wheat for some variety.  I also wanted some seeds in this bread because I love seeds so decided to add pepitas and sunflower seeds at 10% each.

Today's bake: Goat Cheese & Herb Babka

Source: Clotilde Dusoulier - Chocolate & Zucchini  #cnzrecipes

Note:  Orig TDW 0.650kg & Pan 30x10x10cm; New TDW  0.900kg & Pan 40x10x10cm

This first time I tried making one of these I used Full Proof Baking’s Kristen’s formula. It was great, but I had some technical issues related with shaping and transferring the dough from the countertop into the pan.  This time I thought I’d try a different one, Maurizio’s The Perfect Loaf formula.  Some of the minor changes I made are in brackets.

This recipe is for 11”x17” that I have decreased to 80% of the original weights. 

Today's bake: Lyubitelsky Rye (Russian)

Source: Breadlines Spring 2016 - BBGA by Stanley Ginsberg

Note:  Changed TDW from 1.25  kg to 2.188 kg., Molasses - Blackstrap, Unsulphured  for Dark Molasses

My daughter in law has given me some starter. I have already made one nice sandwich loaf with it. Now I'm trying to figure out a feeding schedule. I tried putting it in the fridge, but that was a disaster. It got a thick "skin" on the outside and didn't rise at all. 

I took it out, got rid of what looked weird, discarded all but 100 gr, then added 100 gr spring water, 100 gr A/P flour. (1:2:2, right?) It doubled in 11 hours (although it did not do anything at all for the first 4 hours).

Sourlotti by Abby has a great way for making an 'oat porridge' bread that has worked out well for me before. I think it might be the amount of butter in the soaker preparation that makes it work so much better for me? In any case, for this loaf I decided to eschew the butter and replace it with coconut oil which has been working very nicely for me as a substitute for butter in other recipes too like hamburger rolls.

My mother-in-law loves laminated pastries, so I decided to spoil her a little bit by making a few different ones while she was here. Of course, I am also spoiling my husband and myself because we now have an abundance of riches in the freezer. Not sure whether the lamination bug will continue or whether I am all laminated out.

First up: poolish croissants, https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/22677/poolish-croissant-pursuit-perfection

Having to practice more to get the rust out of my processes and shaping.  I was able to get my preferred organic all purpose flour similar to T55 for baguettes.  Also continuing to see how far I can push fermentation with every so slightly more gluten development with each bake.  In this bake along with the Rubaud kneading in the bowl when adding the levain and later when adding the bassinage water, I did a total of 300 slap and folds.  These recent bakes do support the fact that doing more gluten development does support longer fermentation without loss of grigne/ears.

Three loaves using 900 grams organic white winter wheat from starter...still Desem is the most delicious bread I have ever baked.