Seeded Sourdough french loaves

 My computer is q wee bit sensitive and I guess I rolled my cursor over the Save button and only a portion of article got saved.  Sorry.  I'm hoping the entire article will be in this "Reply Article".

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I've posted before and am currently still exploring what can be done w/ the basic dough recipe provided in D. Lahey's My Bread.  His formula is quite simple and I vary it only in the type of leavening.  He uses commercial instant active yeast, I used sourdown starter.  The starter is the same formula espoused by Peter Reinhardt using pineapple juice.  You can find that so many places on the web so I'm not going to discuss the methodology in making it.  I should also add that my skill set is still in the Novice stage, but slowly I can see where I'm evolving and just having a lot of fun baking.  My daughter has taken to calling me Bernie "Crocker".  But enough of ther personal stuff, let's get on to what I think has to be one of the best breads I've made in the last month. It's kind of like love for your children, you find each one unique but love all of them equally even though some may be a little more problematical than one of the others.  So it is with my breads.  I love 'em all, but the Sourdough Multi-Seeded Levain is my bread du-jour for the moment.

Here are all of my pix for this loaf:  http://www.facebook.com/editphoto.php?aid=57366#!/album.php?aid=57366&id=1172499599

For this particular loaf, I used about 11/2 batches of Lahey's basic dough.  (I had made two batches and put them in a container I have and when I cut the dough that I was going to use, i saw that I had taken almost 3/4's of the prefermenting dough which was two basic recipes.  For the mathematical:  800 g. of KA Bread Flour, 600 g. of water, 1 cup of starter ala Reinhardt, and 3 tsps. sea salt.  This is the formula for the initial dough in my container, and i took 3/4's of it to make this loaf.  The bread sat on my counter for 18 hours and was quite active when I took it out.  It was so active that I could actually see it bubbling up like the Brea tar pits.  I've never seen that happen before.  The dough had more than doubled from the time that I mixed the dough the day before.  I'm confident of this because i marked the container w/ a felt tip magic marker to see how fast it was rising.  Again, because the dough is somewhat wet and sticky, I generously dusted my workplace and kneaded (forgive me Mr. Lahey) the dough for no more than a couple of turns then let it rest and I dusted the toop of the dough to make it easier to work with.

While resting, I gathered my seeds and made up a seed mix consisting of 1/4 cup of the following seeds: sunflower, pumpkin, sesame, poppy, fennel, and anise.  I've included a pix of the seed mix which I've put in a plastic container to use on future occasions. 

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For the second S&F, I stretched out the dough about 10 or 11 inches and perhaps 5 or 6 inches long and took a couple of large handfuls of the seed mix and spread them evenly across the dough; next, I folded the  slightly seeded dough by pulling the dough out in front of me and then the ten and I o'clock positions, turned it and did the same $&F to the dough as I did earlier.  I kept layering seeds each time I folded it, about a handful each time.  I wasn't looking to have most of the seeds in the dough, I really wanted them on the crust as you can see from the photos.  Finally, I rolled the dough into a ball and let it rest again.  Following this second rest, I stretched the dough into a Levain  and put it on a cornmeal coated oven peel, covered w/ a plastic bag and towel and let set for two hours for its final rise.  This was about a 3# loaf.  5 minutes before putting it in the oven I took a brush wet w/ water and brushed the loaf after it had been scored, layered on the seeds and slid it on to a stone at 475.  After 25 minutes, I noticed the ends were browning a tad faster so I covered them with foil for the balance of the cooking time.  After 30 minutes, I reduced the heat to 400 and cooked for another 20 minutes.  When the carmelization looked right, I checked the internal temp from the bottom as someone had suggested on my first comment on this site and it came in at 205 degrees.

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The loaf had some great oven spring which probably added another 3/4 inch to the overall height.  The crumb, after two hours of cooling was moist and flavorful and showed the effects of the sourdough leavening quite well.  I'm happy with the loaf and will do this again.   I think next time I will use my baguette pan.

Now, let's see what's next on the hit parade?