This weekend I tried to make sourdough bread with the home grown sourdough starter I made. It failed. The final dough never rose, so I suspect the mother starter had lost its power. Step by Step Following the directions in Reinhart’s “Artisan Breads Every Day,” on Saturday...

This is a follow-up attempt from Loaf 11, my French baguettes that only tasted okay. This time I used the same recipe, but corrected what I thought were the errors from last time. The dough came out too sticky again, so I added a bit more flour until it became tacky. I handled the dough more...

Loaves 12 and 13 were both challah breads made from different recipes. Loaf 12 was from Peter Reinhart’s Artisan Breads Every Day book, and Loaf 13 was from Williams-Sonoma Collection: Bread. I’ve made the W-S challah quite a few times, and this was my first time making the...

The second loaf of challah I am making for my “Recipe Bake-Off” is from the Williams-Sonoma Bread book. I’ve had this book for a long time and bake a few things regularly from it, challah being one of them. It’s become a tradition around Christmas for us (what?!). This...

I’m making two different versions of challah bread this weekend in my own “Recipe Bake-Off.” This version is from Peter Reinhart’s Artisan Breads Every Day book. The dough is mixed, then does a slow fermentation overnight in the fridge. The next day it is shaped and...

The recipe from “Artisan Breads Every Day” for French Bread is very similar to the Ciabatta recipe, without oil or stretch and folds. I was excited to try this so I could use the baguette pans that Sarah gave me. The end result looked nice (with some exceptions noted below),...

I tried this loaf again. The results were a bit better, but still far from right. This time I mixed the ingredients the minimum amount to get them blended with the seeds worked in, this amounted to about 10 minutes less kneading of the dough. In addition to being faster and easier, the dough...

I tried to make the Seeded Whole Wheat Boule that we made in the bread class – it was one of my favorites, a surprisingly sweet nutty loaf that would make wonderful sandwiches but is also nice alone with butter. This version came out heavy and chewy. The flavor is nice, but I get very...