Yesterday morning I began preparations for today's baking. I made both
a rye and a white AP flour pre-ferment, each from one of my active
sourdough starters (I am up to 7 of them now).

Last evening I mixed the doughs based on each pre-ferment. I prepped
for Jewish style rye bread and also made an enriched, brioche-type
sweet dough for two purposes - pecan sticky buns and a cinnamon raisin
pecan loaf.

I'm getting more confident working without recipes and though I have
been doing this for quite awhile with lean dough breads, I am now
branching out in attempts to work without recipes in more complicated
doughs and breads. One of the reasons that I pursue this is so I
familiarize myself even more with various types of flours and other
ingredients so I can pretty much bake with whatever I have on hand. It
is also a lot of fun for me - more so than just following a recipe.

The photos of some of the weekend's efforts are here. I took the photo
of the rye bread a tad too soon and you can actually see some of the
cornstarch glaze basting evident on the loaf. Nevertheless, I am quite
happy with the results of it all.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25648800@N04/

Boron