Pane di Altamura

This bread was well underway before I read around on the internet and discovered that I, like many others who tried it, had done almost everything wrong. Most importantly I used readily available semolina flour, when apparently what one wants is a much finer grind available only in Italy, or at least not readily here. Nothing daunted, I went ahead and baked. I haven't tasted it yet, but feel in any case that it is no small thing to have produced a loaf that looks as nice and smells as heavenly as this one does.

Whole Wheat Sourdough Miche

Delicious, delicious bread. But I confess to tearing up when I took it out of the oven because I can't, no matter what I try, get it to burst and split in the oven like I see other people's loaves doing. Eating a few pieces of it cheered me up a bit.

For dinner last night we had lamb chops, okra, and curried (disgusting, watery, flavorless) acorn squash.

Sesame Seed Kamut Levain

This loaf has 50% kamut flour, 45% bread flour, 5% whole wheat, and is filled with sesame seeds inside and out. It is extremely good today, and I think will be better tomorrow and the day after. I dearly love sesame seeds. I also love kamut flour, and don't understand why the recipes I read call for (in my opinion) cautious amounts of it. Berenbaum recommends 6% (!!!). I'm sure she has her reasons, and they probably have to do with maintaining authenticity in her recipe for pain au levain, but luckily for me I don't care about authenticity. I care about using lots of kamut. This is a good way to do it.

Whole Wheat Sourdough Miche

This is a really reliable loaf. I love the way the crust darkens, and then darkens again when I toast it.

Now We're Getting Somewhere

Round two of the Kamut Levain. I did everything exactly the same, except for one thing: during the bulk fermentation stage (when one lets the dough rise for about four hours) I did two "letter fold turns." This involves dumping the dough out, stretching it into a rectangle, folding it in thirds, and returning it to the rising container. My internet research assured me that this would lead to better oven spring, and the internet was right. The oven spring was nice, and the crust color better, and I swear the bread tastes better too. So: letter fold turns. Not a dispensable step.

Kamut Levain

This is the Kamut Levain from Local Breads. It is extremely delicious; my spouse declared it my best yet and the best bread he's ever had. He's a man who is generous with his praise, but still; I'm pleased. The only thing is that it had pathetic oven spring, and I don't know why. Over-proofing? Flour without pep? I know the levain itself is nice and active, so I guess I'll just keep playing. I've reached the beginner's plateau where I've stopped being delighted when the bread works at all and have started to worry about how to make it work *right.* Good thing wrong bread tastes so good.

Pain Au Levain

In my opinion, the best bread yet. Stiff dough starter, nice beefy percentage of whole wheat and rye flours, and oven spring that resulted in beautifully cylindrical batards. I think I am persistently slashing too shallowly, but other than that I have no fault to find with this mouthwatering bread. We had it with friends; I made a Swiss chard quiche (pre-baked the crust this time, which made all the difference in the world), salad, and banana bread for dessert (all-purpose, whole wheat, and amaranth flours).

Whole Wheat Sourdough Miche

A very, very good loaf of bread. This is the first one I've made that I would say is genuinely sour. It is tender and flavorful, but its real glory is its crust: deeply caramelized and delicious. It was also the occasion for a discovery. I had to use all of the starter I'd made for it, saving none to ferment the next batch. For fun I decided to mix a new starter in the old container, which had a few clinging shreds of starter in it, and lo: a whole new batch of starter, no problemo (and for that matter, problem solved). I'm learning that wild yeast is strong.

"Whole" Spelt Loaf

"Whole" is in quotation marks because in fact I ran out of spelt flour and had to top it up with whole wheat (maybe 20%). This is what my spelt starter did; as you can see, it had oven spring that, once again, made a mockery of my slashes. I think it's a beautiful loaf, and has a deep, complex, tangy flavor I like. Unfortunately, only I and one of the household toddlers like it, so it may not get made again for a while. Will have to find another use for spelt starter (fragrant library paste?)

French Country Boule

These are from Local Breads. If I have to quibble with bread this delicious, it would be to say that I prefer a higher percentage of rye and whole wheat flours than these called for. But seriously, why am I quibbling? There's nothing not to like here. For one thing, these babies had oven spring to spare. They laughed in the face of my wee slashes and almost burst themselves in half as they rose in the oven. I attribute this muscle to my use of bread flour; up until now I've been using all-purpose. I'm a convert.

Old World Baguette Redux

Definitely a life lesson here. This bread looks nothing like the bread described in my book, and no stage of its preparation went as predicted, and I suffered great frustration along the way, and when I went ahead and baked it I came up with one of the best pieces of bread I've ever tasted. I'm beginning to understand that there are not many ways to mess up bread made from a levain. The picture does not do justice to the opalescence of the bread's chewy interior.

Buckwheat Batards

Or as I affectionately think of them, "li'l buckwheat bastards." My second recipe from Local Bread. These are just as good as they look, and particularly gratifying because the omens during their making were so uniformly unpropitious (insufficient water, texture not at all as described in the book, dubious rising of the levain). I was cheered a little bit when I realized that the recipe itself had some significant errata, so the difference between my dough and the one it described was inevitable. Two things on which I did make progress this time were proofing (I didn't overproof) and slashing (I used a razor blade and boy, does a truly sharp blade ever make a difference.)

La Flute Gana

Voila, my first recipe from Local Bread. It involves commercial yeast and a little bit of corn flour, plus a long refrigeration of the proofed dough, called "retarding." If only someone had asked me what I was doing yesterday I could have answered, "retarding the flutes!" In any case, they are terrific. Very delicious, with a crust so deep and strong and crisp-yet-chewy that my jaw ached as I finished my first bites. True, they are oddly shaped; I blame over-proofing, a too-cool oven, and a not-perfectly-sharp dough scorer. I can fix these things, and in the mean time, will enjoy this bread.