This Lean recipe has become my “go to” loaf of bread. I love the flavor and it’s now very easy to make. This dough was mixed on Wednesday night and shaped, proofed and baked Thursday evening. One of the loaves is a gift for a friend that I had lunch with on Friday, the other...

While I was making the epi rolls, I also threw together a couple of lean bread loaves for leftover sandwiches. This bread, shaped in a rectangular banneton, makes excellent sandwich bread. Combine that with leftover deep-fried turkey and some extra bacon from breakfast, and you (or I,...

For Thanksgiving dinner I decided to make epi rolls. Epis are baguettes that have been snipped and shaped so that they look like a wheat stalk after baking. The pieces break off as individual rolls, which works great for a big family meal. I’ve only tried them once before and only did a...

We had a houseful of people for Thanksgiving, so my bread plan had to span a few days. On Thanksgiving Eve I made two loaves of challah bread – one for surf & turf dinner that night and the other for French Toast the morning after Thanksgiving. Back in January I did a bake-off...

We live in a major earthquake zone and try to be smart about being prepared. After seeing the impact of Hurricane Sandy back east, we took another pass on our emergency readiness at home. Under the scenario of staying at home for two weeks without power, I thought that we could bake bread in...

Batch two of three batches of bread of a dinner party for our ETC-SV students. This loaf was my standard Reinhart Lean Bread – no chances taken when guests are coming over! The loaves were flavorful and popular, but did suffer from the reheating I did right before serving. Full details...

Like my lean loaves (Loaf 68), the ciabatta worked beautifully. Big, puffy and light. I did one step differently than usual. Typically I shape the loaves by stretching the dough out into a rectangle, then doing a tri-letter fold. After half the proofing time I flip the loaves over. This flip...

Another set of loaves made for the Boulder dinner. They behaved perfectly at higher altitude. I tried steaming the oven by spraying the oven and loaves three times during the first three minutes of baking. My spraying technique was not very uniform, though, and I believe that is the reason...