Stephanie's Kitchen Drawer: Enamel Dutch Oven

Remember my wild yeast starter and book about bread making?  I learned crusty bread needs steam and since a professional steam oven was way out of my price range the next best solution mentioned a variety of books and blogs was a dutch oven.  My yeast starter is getting bigger by the week so I needed to get serious about sourdough break baking.  After baking two loaves of sour dough bread in the 7.5 quart Lodge Dutch Oven I am a believer.  The bread was perfect and delicious.  I bought this dutch oven here.  You don't need the biggest Dutch Oven though, the 3 quart model would work well and your loaf would grow high versus wide like mine did.

Stephanie's Food For Thought

Last year just before Christmas I had this wonderful and crazy idea to make homemade chocolate chip Panetone for Christmas breakfast.  We have a family tradition of eating Panetone for Christmas morning.  My children don't like the traditional Panetone with dried fruit but they do like the chocolate chip variety.  I had been holding onto Panetone paper molds for a few years with the intention of making homemade Panetone.  I have a book recommended by my expert chef/scientist PhD friend Kristy called "The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread."  I bought the book on Amazon here.  In this book is a great section on Panetone and it's history along with a recipe.  I highly recommend the book.  

Back to the wild yeast starter.  I wanted my own wild yeast starter so I could make traditional Panetone,  I bought this wild yeast starter from Amazon here.   My yeast starter wasn't ready in time for making the Panetone but I have used it to make the sourdough bread recipe found in "The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread."  The bread was delicious.  I highly recommend this starter and the book if you get a chance to order them both.   My starter is kept in a half gallon mason jar in my refrigerator.  I feed it once a week with high gluten flour and filtered water.