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Last week I managed to try a few other recipes with mixed results...

1)Rustic Bread
Very nice loaves of bread. Delicious!!! I made it twice (once with rye flour) and my husband and I both thoroughly enjoyed the two different types.

2)Sweet Corn Raisin Bread
I had quite a few laughs throughout the process of making this bread...since I have joined this site, I have read so many pieces of advice about working with wet dough that I think I took it to the extreme while I was making this loaf! After I *poured* the dough out onto my lightly floured counter (using my hands, arms and apron to stop it from oozing into the sink and off the counter!) I realized that I probably should have added more flour in the first stage :) Nevertheless, I persevered and somehow managed to shape it into a fairly round object (this required much patience and a constantly running tap to clean dough off my hands). I then plopped the globular mass of dough into a bowl that I had covered with a heavily floured teatowel and proceeded to clean up the huge mess I had made all over the counter! Sometimes I think it is a blessing in disguise that I have such a tiny little kitchen because then at least even huge messes remain somewhat manageable :) It rose very well, but to finish off my adventure, I really screwed up the scoring process by changing my mind halfway through...after all was said and done, the baked loaf looked like a golden brown loaf that had been attacked from above before it made it into the oven. However, it was scrumptious with a nice crumb...maybe I will have better luck with the process next time. There WILL be a "next time"!!!

3)Whole wheat/flax seed/bran/oatmeal bread
My own "failproof" recipe that has never let me down...until this week. Do you see a pattern here? I bought my whole wheat flour from a bulk health food store this week and it was very coarsely ground (I even found 1" bits of wheat ?chaff? in it!). I also had a very busy day so I ended up leaving the dough in the fridge for most of the first rise...in the end, I produced 2 teeny little loaves. At least they were not rock hard...they were actually quite moist and tasty. Probably a good way to prepare bread for bringing on an overnight backpacking trip :) I guess that is the beauty of baking bread...pretty hard to screw up a loaf so bad that it isn't worth eating!

4)Baguettes Bizarre
In order to keep my current disaster "streak" going, I decided to try out a new recipe for baguettes instead of my usual. So as I type, I am halfway through the process and keeping my fingers crossed. I got the recipe from a website link from this site, and it is completely different than any recipe I have ever tried so I will see how it works...on the website, she admits that this is actually a Reinhart recipe that he got from a parisian baker "Baguettes Ancienne". I had to mix up the flour, salt, yeast and ice water last night, knead it for 6 minutes with my mixmaster, then put it in the fridge overnight. This is not the usual biga/poolish method, because you don't add any additional ingredients the next day...what you start with the night before is what you end up with. Now it says to let the dough rest on the counter for 3 hours, then simply shape the dough (which the website author had huge difficulties with and I'm sure I will too) and throw the baguettes in the oven. Seems like such a short process compared to the way I usually do it, so I thought I would give it a try... Wish me luck!!!

5)Banana Zucchini Bread
On this weekend's list due to the fact that both of these ingredients are approaching the decay stage in my fridge...sounds yummy, doesn't it? :) I was originally going to follow a recipe I got from the web:Banana Zucchini Bread. I didn't have any self-rising flour, but I read somewhere that for every cup of flour you should add 1 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt to make it equivalent to self-rising flour. Hmmm...that would mean adding 3.5 x 1.5 = 5 1/4 tsp of baking powder...do I smell another disaster in the offing???? I guess it would make sense to end my week of oozing, non-rising, flopping, slashed-apart bread with a loaf that explodes out of the oven :) I just popped my loaves in the oven 5 minutes ago, and the ingredients I ended up adding actually ended up being a mixture from the original recipe (linked above), Linda's Whole Wheat Zucchini Banana Bread, Floydm's Better Banana Bread, and a few of my own additions :) If it works out, I will post the recipe in my next blog entry so I don't forget what I did!

A big baking weekend, now that my oven is fixed:

Click more for photos.

The two in front are pain au levain with 10% whole rye. I usually use a firm starter, because to get a decent "sour" out of my local microflora, I have to work them hard: firm starter, long bulk fermentation (6 hours), overnight retarding in the fridge. This formula required a starter at 125% hydration, so I converted some of my starter and followed his instructions to the T. The result: a mildly sour, flavorful bread similar to French bread that just exploded in the oven. I've NEVER gotten oven spring like this before.

I haven't cut into the sourdough raisin pecan with a cinnamon swirl (in the back). It's in the freezer -- I expect it will either be delicious or awful.

By the way, whenever I retard a pan loaf of sourdough, the top of the loaf that's directly exposed to the cold always bakes up much more pale than the rest of the loaf. I cover it with plastic. Anyone have any idea what I could do to prevent it from being so pale? I don't mind too much, since the flavor isn't affected, but it would be nice if the entire loaf was a nice golden brown.

A nice open crumb. I was very pleased. :-)

Here's the baguettes. I clearly need some help with slashing and shaping, but there were neverthleless mighty tasty. Nutty, somewhat sweet with a long tangy finish. I made three baguettes, but one already made its way to our happy bellies before I could find the camera.

Baguette crumb. Not as open as I'd like, but I'll take it. Next week, I'm going to make poolish baguettes. I imagine that will produce more holey bread.

Next week: Hammelman's Potato bread with the addition of fresh rosemary (from my friends garden) and roasted garlic. Mmmmmmmmmm.

There's pecan craisin and sourdough rye and pumpernickel breads on the top of my fridge. Banana bread on my counter. Sourdough craisin dinner rolls, herb rye, pumpernickel and pizza dough fill my freezer. 25 lb buckets of flour fill my basement. Sourdough starters crowd my fridge. My in-laws have threatened my life for making them fat with breads they can't resist.

It's a terrible addiction :)

-Joe