Baking bread, breaking bread

Last night I baked my third yeasted loaf since I got out the Tassajara Bread Book again after years of it hiding in my boxes and/or cupboard. This time, since I was running low on almost all the flours, and need to restock, it was a weird hodgepodge of things: buckwheat, spelt, and regular (white) bread flour, 9-grain cereal, and cornmeal, with leftover sweetened condensed milk, a few eggs that needed using, a bit of leftover brown rice, a little lowfat milk, some almond oil, and of course sea salt, yeast, and filtered water, with raw sunflower seeds on top.

I was getting toward the end of the second rising when Katie and John arrived in the evening, so Katie helped me knead and shape a couple of the loaves. And then I baked it, while we sat back and chatted and enjoyed the smell of freshly baking bread. And it came out . . . brilliant! The uncooked cereal and cornmeal gave a great crunchiness throughout the loaf, but the overall texture was soft and delightfully chewy, with a lovely crust that was notably crusty without being "painful" like some crusty breads, as John pointed out. We ate almost a whole round loaf together, straight out of the oven, with organic butter and organic strawberry jam, me and my companions. . . :)

My camera batteries need replacing, but maybe I can get one more shot out of them to add here . . .