My Bread Year: Buckwheat Batards

I don't really take recommendations from people. Well, people often give me recommendations, which I disregard, but also file away in one of the darkest corners of my brain. Which is to say, that I don't welcome ideas from others. For me, things just have to happen organically.

For example, earlier this month, Smitten Kitchen featured Shakshuka. I thought it looked interesting, but didn't run to my kitchen to immediately make it. Then, I finally put in a cookbook order at Amazon.co.uk, and got the Ottolenghi cookbook. No, there's no skakshuka recipe in there, but days after I got the cookbook, I came across a video of him making it.

And there you go. Now I want to make it.

But wait, you ask- There's a picture of bread at the top of this post, not of some awesome red pepper and egg concoction. I know, I know. All I have to say is that this are the Buckwheat Batards from Daniel Leader's Local Breads. I picked up some buckwheat flour at the store after reading about it, and all of a sudden, it started appearing everywhere.

I remembered the recipe, noted that the measurements were inconsistent, and checked to see if there was a correction on the Errata PDF released by the man himself. There was.

Why no more pictures? The starter was really ugly and dark, almost like a ball of mush. The loaves themselves weren't much better off, and the dough just didn't behave. I'm starting to think I'm settling into a comfort zone of sorts with the German wheat flours.

It wasn't so much that I didn't like the bread, but that I was underwhelmed by it. I did give a loaf away, and it was reported that the people who tried it thought it was amazing. So maybe I'm just too hard on myself or maybe I'm just way too used to wheat breads.

Yes, I'll revisit this one. But maybe I'll wait until people start a critical mass for Buckwheat.

For some truly beautiful Buckwheat Batards check out this post on The Fresh Loaf.