Pain de Champagne

[Auggie]

aka "French sourdough" from Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish. This is made with a levain, which is a sourdough starter with some added whole wheat flour. It cooks in the cast iron dutch oven shown on top. It's got the creamy texture of sourdough with an extra whole wheat bite. More steps than usual but still relatively easy to make.

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A flatbread I made from leftover levain. Topped with olive oil, sea salt, rosemary and artisan seeds. It's surprisingly good.

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[Major Nikon]

1. I've posted extensively about that book

I've been too busy lately to mess with feeding a levain, but I'll probably get another one going in the fall.

[Warpy]

2. I'm honestly beginning to think that the secret to baking beautiful breads

is using a Dutch oven unless you're wealthy enough to own a steam injector oven. While oven baked bread with the pan of water in the bottom is perfectly acceptable and vastly superior to supermarket bread, the only way to get a crackly, fabulous crust is to seal it up with its own steam for the first 45 minutes of baking.

[Auggie]

3. Totally agree

I like this Fourneau solution (http://www.fourneauoven.com) for bartards and baguettes, but at $225.00 it's too pricey. I'd be great if Lodge came up with something similar and less expensive. Some day I'll try encasing a baguette pan in foil and see how that works.