Obsessive Compulsive Baking/Waffles & Hello

I’ve been here on TFL for a couple weeks now, so I thought it’s about time I introduce myself.

I began obsessively baking about 10 years ago, and after working my way through much of The Bread Baker’s Apprentice’s recipes, amongst others – and, at the same time, discovering a latent love of waffles – I moved to France to eat for a few years, with a heavy eye on pastry.

I’ve now been back in the U.S. for 3 years and have invested much of my time in waffles – with a focus on ale yeast risen waffles - which I’ve developed reverential and deeply obsessive feelings toward. Tied to that has been a tremendous amount of work on classic brioche (ale yeast risen, low protein flour and no milk used), which I’ve parlayed into both an excellent standard brioche and a sublime kugelhopf recipe.

I’m now awaiting the arrival of a Grainmaker No. 99 mill, which should be here in about 2 weeks. It’s one of the last pieces of the puzzle in my work to recreate 19th century French/Belgian flour and waffles.

I ultimately hope I can share as much as I’ve been gleaning from the forums here.

The top shot is technically both a crust and [kinda] crumb shot from one of my ale yeast risen Brussels waffles, and below is one of my babies, the HVD A26.