Stiff Starter Squad…. Chime in please!!! I’m trying to remember who all uses a stiff starter. I’m tagging who I can remember. If you know a Stiff Starter Squad Member that has NOT been tagged please tag them below. @Donna Angelo @Sandy Chong @Tracy Havlik @Patt Stanaway @Ann Snow @Jen Dolan @Jill Hart If you’re on this list and not using a stiff starter please let me know Thanks EVERYONE!!

Look at how far we've come. We've learned to watch the dough, not the clock. We've worked on shaping and scoring. We've handled wet dough and figured out how to manage it without panicking. We've built our first preferments and seen what a poolish can do. Now we're going to take everything you've learned and build on it. This week we're baking the pretzel loaf. Two tracks. Same loaf. Yeasted with a poolish if you don't have an active starter, or sourdough if you do. Same hydration, same flour weight, same bath, same bake. Just two different ways to get the dough started. Here's what we're adding to your toolkit this week. The alkaline bath. Most home bakers have never used one. It's the step that turns a regular loaf into a pretzel loaf. Three things happen in that bath, and once you understand the why, you'll never look at a pretzel the same way again. Scoring an alkalized crust. The bath seals the surface tight, which means your score has to do real work. We'll get into where to place it and how deep to go. Reading the bake. The five-minute butter rule. What success looks like when you cut into the crumb. The three most common mistakes and how to fix them before they happen. Here's the thing about doing this together that you can't replicate baking alone in your kitchen. When you bake on your own, you only see your loaf. You don't know if your bulk fermentation went too long or too short until you've cut into it. You don't know what underproofed looks like at hour four versus hour six. You don't know if your bath was strong enough until the loaf comes out pale and you're not sure why. In a bake-along, you're seeing dozens of doughs at every stage at the same time. Someone's hours ahead of you. Someone's hours behind. Someone's about to make the same mistake you almost made yesterday, and you can warn them. Someone else figured something out you didn't, and now you know it too. You get exposed to bread you might never have tried on your own. The pretzel loaf is a perfect example. How many of you would've boiled a bread dough in alkaline water if you weren't doing it as a community? Probably not many. But you'll do it this Saturday, and your kitchen's going to smell like something it's never smelled before.

Hi all. Yesterday I built the beginner’s sourdough loaf and cooked it this morning after cold proof overnight. It’s small but maybe it was meant to be. I followed the recipe to a T but I may have chickened out after 4+ hours in the bulk stage afraid of overproofing. It seemed to stop rising and I had it in my oven with the light on. Before I went to bed I formed it and put it in the baneton and into the fridge. It sort of looks like sourdough. When I pulled it out of the oven the temp was about 207°. 20 min at 450 lid on. 25 min lid off. Ideas? I know you know what I could have done better so thanks in advance. This is about the 8th or so loaf since the plunge down this rabbit hole.

@Tracy Havlik @Sandy Chong @Jill Hart @Jen Dolan @Ann Snow @Patt Stanaway @Deborah Karaban @Judy Lyle @Colleen Vergara I just wanted to update you all about what @Candi Brown-McGriff and I have been up to the last few weeks. We researched Lievito madre, which is just a sweet stiff starter, and started them together. We tried them in several different recipes. I did several loaves of bread, and the Lievito madre gives you a loaf with no sour tang, a great crumb and a very thin crisp top crust. I made a couple of dessert focaccias, ciabatta buns, cheddar jalapeño loaves, blueberry bread. I was going to make a few enriched doughs, because that is usually what this is used for, but I hurt my hand, so I will have to wait to bake them. We both absolutely love our new starters, and will be keeping them indefinitely. If anyone is interested, or has a family member who hates the tang, and I do, this is the answer. Lievito Madre Starter 100g sourdough starter, at peak 50g water 100g flour 4g olive oil 7g honey Mix, together, and knead all of the dry bits of flour in. Knead for a couple of minutes. Roll out into a smooth dough. Either roll into a snail, or into a tight ball, and cut a deep X into it, then place it in your starter jar. I fed her twice a day during the first week, and she has been tripling consistently. Keep your LM at room temperature for the first 7 days to strengthen it. Then you can place it into the fridge, a couple of hours after feeding, and bake with it when you are ready, taking it out to feed it, every 5-7 days. If you make a levain out of it, and I do regularly, add the appropriate amounts of olive oil and honey when you build your levain.

Hello there, fellow bakers and bread makers! First, I want to say "well done!" and "congratulations!" to all of you who were involved in last weekend's bake-along. Reading through the thread and getting to see the wins, failures, and everything in between warmed my heart. And for those who were not able to join in due to busyness or something else...I hear you. I REALLY want to be a part of the action soon! But before that happens... Here is my main question: As someone who is looking forward to baking bread, but does not own most of the essential tools for making and baking bread, I would like to ask: what tools or equipment would you recommend buying? Are there any certain brands or companies you have bought from whose tools work really well for you in your bread making? All feedback is welcome!