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A bit of catch up today on some Spring baking, starting with Irish soda bread for St. Patrick's day.  The recipe couldn't be easier (especially when compared to all the levain breads I play around with these days), and is a family favorite every St. Patrick's, and this recipe is one I picked up from Elise Bauer's great blog some years ago.  (I like the added raisins).

There's not a lot to say, really, but the picture doesn't show the whole story, so I suppose I'll have to explain.

What you see above is a new rendition of Hamelman's Challah recipe, altered a bit. There's milk where there should be water, and butter in place of oil, honey instead of sugar, and a small amount of whole wheat flour, just for a little somethin'.

It's not what makes this bread significant, though. Nor the weaving of four strands of dough together, which went well enough for not having done it for so long.

I put my new grain mill to work this weekend. The first thing I did was bake the teaching loaf in Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads book.  Note, the master formula is not error free. Under ingredients and method he states to use all of the soaker, and then states use all of the soaker (or biga) when he should have said starter (or biga).  See, I read these things, Peter!

There is a traditional type of test question in medicine called “visual diagnosis.” The student is shown a photo - it might be of a whole person, a face or just a piece of skin with a rash - and asked to make a diagnosis. The last time I took a test like that was for board certification in Pediatrics. That was in 1977, and I can still remember most of the photos I was shown - a young girl with an inguinal hernia, a teenage boy’s feet (They were flat.), a rash (Scabies), a child with a rare genetic condition (Progeria). I think there were a couple more.

Here is the same recipe as the boule but using a KA pullman pan. It is slightly sour with millet and sunflower seeds. Used reduced amount of honey,home ground WW and my sourdough. Both the WW and the sourdough are fermented overnight and than mixed together.  PR's Whole Grain Breads provides calorie info for each recipe.

PR's Whole Grain Breads suggests making in loaf pan or as a boule. Increased recipe size by 13%, used sourdough and fermented both ( freshly milled WW with water and salt and my sourdough starter) overnight.  Best toasting bread especially with added millet and sunflower seeds - 4 ounces.

So I've opted to work on previously formulas that I liked and get them nailed down this time around. To keep it interesting I'll float between a bunch instead of doing the same over and over.  As long as I keep notes and don't let a year pass this should work just fine.  I really wanted to work on the Whole Wheat Walnut but I need to source some good organic nuts that don't cost an arm and a leg so that'll have to wait.

After so much praise from breadsong and with my love of nordic ryes, I had to try this!  I stuck to Martin's original formula, which included barley and more seeds than breadsong's.  And more syrup! The web said you could substitute dark corn syrup for Swedish "bread syrup"; but to hedge my bets I split it 50% light corn syrup and the other 50% molasses and honey.

Here is the formula I used (which might be useful for anyone attempting to make Martin's original, which is in Swedish.)

Hello everyone!

Today's bake was a multigrain sourdough with a buckwheat soaker. I happen to love buckwheat and often eat it instead of rice -- a practice that is customary in many Lithuanian cafeterias (not that I'm praising the cafeteria food) -- so I wanted to incorporate some buckwheat flavor into a bread. There is always the option of using buckwheat flour, but for this bake I went for the buckwheat soaker/scald.