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I, too, had a doughy disaster today. I was trying to make a simple French/Italian bread using both a poolish (a wet, yeasted, overnight pre-ferment) and an autolyse (a flour and water quick pre-ferment). The poolish was too wet, the autolyse too dry, and when I tried to mix them together I could not get the chunks of autolyse dough to combine with poolish. It ended up having the consistency of chicken and dumplings. I ended up throwing the batch out and starting over.

The next batch turned out better.

16 oz. bread flour
11 oz. water
1 heaping teaspoon instant yeast
2 teaspoons salt

I combined the flour and water in a bowl and mixed just until the flour was full hydrated. I covered the bowl and let it hydrate for 20 minutes. Then I mixed in the yeast and salt, mixed for about 3 minutes, and placed the dough in covered bowl. I gave it 45 minutes, then folded, another 45 then a fold, and a final 45 before shaping into rounds, placing in my floured baskets, which I covered, and let them rise for a final 75 minutes.

I baked them at 475 with initial steam. They were in for about 25 or 30 minutes. They turned out quite nice:

We had a pot of vegetable soup and a bottle of Chianti with them. You couldn't ask for a better meal on a wet, wintery day.

Once in a while, my mind will conjure some crazy idea.
I did an experiment today. I tried smoking bread... Here goes the experiment.

Since i lacked time, i made a small lean dough with more yeast, from Whole wheat and all purpose.

Dough rised and got punched down. Shaped into a rough naan.

For the smoking device...i used a wok with a lid, lined with foil and the fuel was brown rice and green tea (for added frangrance). Could smoke chicken, pork or duck in that too.
Once fully heated, my kitchen smelled like a Chinese pork roasting pit! haha...smoky and fragrant in a way.

placed the bread in the wok, and smoked it for about 15minutes +...

Result?
Smoky aroma with a slight sour hint.
Bread was soft and not dry due to vapour built in wok.

although it was fun to experiment, i think i'll stick with the normal oven for the mean time. hehe..

Perhaps, it would do better with raw toppings... Smoked pizza?? :P

We had the buttermilk rolls on the Thanksgiving table. They were wonderful.

I'm trying to finish our can of coffee as quickly as I can so that I can use it to try baking a Panettone. In the meantime, I'll probably bake another batch or two of stollen and some of my family's Christmas cookies.

We going to visit family in Texas in a couple of weeks. Supposedly Texas is where fruit cake originated. I may have to pick up a couple of authentic Texas fruit cakes while I am there. If anyone knows of a particularly good place to get fruit cake from, please let me know.

I burnt my lil finger a bit just now while making Naans for dinner today (thx to my very small oven size!). I'm having a vegetarian Indian dinner tonight.

The Naan goes with lentil curry and fried bittergourd with spices. :) [Dunno how it tastes like yet though...]