Most bookmarked

So, I'm the office baker (I love to bake and live alone, so I bring the goodies into the office so I don't eat it all myself!), and recently someone tossed out the idea of pretzel bread.

I hadn't heard of it before and was wondering if I just need to use a good pretzel recipe and shape the dough into loaf instead of pretzels, or if there is an actual pretzel bread recipe floating around out there. Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks much!
Alexis

I'm attempting to create my own wild sourdough starter. I took a look at Sourdoughlady's recipe for starter, but it was a bit intimidating, so I went for the Joy of Cooking recipe. I've been following it pretty closely, but I'm not sure when it's done.

First, a couple of facts:

1. It doesn't smell weird -- just normal ... maybe a little "yeasty"
2. There are bubbles in it ... not a tremendous amount, but a decent amount
3. It does rise some ... maybe 20% after each feeding.
4. Also, no hooch on the top.

During the feeding last night, I was playing around with it and noticed that it's very creamy ... nothing at all like a dough. It looks to have the same texture as very creamy melted cheese. I'm not sure what that means ... something I read implied if that happened it means the yeast had already consumed (?) all the gluten and there wasn't anything else to feed on (therefore less bubbles).

The Joy of Cooking recipe doesn't include throwing any out ... not sure if I'm okay as it is, or if I should continue feeding on 12 hour schedule until it doubles, or if I'm doomed.

I only learned about the 'french fold' technique about 2 months ago. I first saw it demonstrated in the Julia Childs Baguette video (link posted elsewhere in these forums).

Said video shows a rather energetic Danielle Forestier lifting dough above her shoulder/head and smashing it down on the work surface before folding it over and repeating (800 times allegedly!).

What I've discovered is that when I use a slightly gentler technique, the dough (gluten) actually develops quicker.  Rather than smashing it down, I lift the dough about 10 inches off the surface and 'lay it out' as if I were laying out a rug or carpet (initial motion forward quickly followed by pulling back).  I then fold as per usual and pick up at the side (essentially giving the dough a quarter turn) and repeat as required.  For me this develops that silky smooth, window-pane-passing dough more swiftly and with less of an armache afterwards!

Anyway, I don't know exactly how or why this works better for me.  I suspect I had previously been tearing gluten strands through over-zealous dough-slapping. 

Hope that helps

Cheers 

FP

Mike Avery said it so well, so I thought we should make it a topic.  I hope he doesn't mind that I quote him:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I like the term "mischbrot" and wish there was, or we could come up with, a term in English that was similar.  "Multi-grain" might be as close as we get, but I'd have trouble using the term "mult-grain" or even "mischbrot" to describe a bread that was part white flour and part whole wheat. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Suggestions: 

Mingled Bread    Combined Bread  Jumbled Bread    Fused Bread   Fusion Bread    United Bread   Joined Bread    Amalgamated Bread    Melded Bread    Harmony Bread     Blended Bread    Compounded Bread    Bread Medley    Bread Me'lange    Potpourri Bread   Miscellany Bread  

What do you think?  Any votes or other suggestions?