Unlike sourdough, I think I have the ciabatta down now. I used a few grams too much water, which gave it a hydration of 82% instead of the recipe’s 80%. Shaping it was almost impossible, and moving it after the first shaping didn’t work at all (I was supposed to flip it over to...

My sourdough class is another two weeks away, but I thought I’d try another loaf with my starter (which I’ve been feeding and keeping alive in the fridge). I used the same recipe from Reinhart’s Artisan Breads Every Day that I used for Loaf 15, and the resulting failure was...

I’m mad at bread right now. These loaves, like about 50% of my other loaves, were a failure. I expect mistakes, which is why I decided to make 100 loaves in the first place, but this batch seemed so similar to my prior Loaf 14 success that I figured it was a sure thing. This was the...

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...

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),...