Mellow baking

Not content with failing to keep up with one challenge (see I’m still alive) I have decided to take up another one! Or is it two…?

I have been baking my own bread for some time now, with varying degrees of success. I love my home-baked bagels, wholemeal loaves and sourdough focaccia. I think my Indian flat breads are pretty decent, but I can never get ciabatta to rise any higher.

I came across the Mellow Bakers group at the end of last year. They are a group of like-minded home bakers who were working through every bread in the book, “Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes” by Jeffrey Hamelman. Every month they picked three random breads from the book, all baked them at a convenient time in that month (although they weren’t strict—quite mellow, in fact—about that) and blogged about their experiences. I came across the group at a very late stage, but I enjoyed looking back through the members’ blogs, discovering all of the great breads they had baked.

At the beginning of this year, the group completed their final breads. But, rather than ending their adventure, they have decided to continue with two new challenges: many of the group are moving on to a new book, “The Handmade Loaf” by Dan Lepard; whilst others are repeating the original “BREAD” challenge.

I already have a copy of both books, and I have baked (again, with varying degrees of success!) one or two breads from each. I have decided to bake along, at least initially, with both new challenges. At times I may have to be mellow about this and drop one or two breads from the schedule. But I’ll give it my best shot and record my experiences here.