This is a tribute to Henry Hunter @Henry Hunter and Robert Caldas @Robert Caldas who both introduced this carrot focaccia bread to us. I wanted to play in my safe and happy place today. I took the focaccia and cinnamon roll recipes from Henry's Recipe Pantry. I extracted what I needed from both. I grated some carrots and added extra spices as I love spices. I am a Spicy Lady. I did the cinnamon roll cream cheese icing and iced it. I sprinkled some dessicated coconut on top as well as some almond flakes to give it color. I added my carrots after the 4th stretch and fold. The dough was a beautiful orange color and so lovely to work with. The dough had so many huge bubbles. The more I dimpled, the more bubbles were appearing all over the place. I cried for joy and thank God for helping me. I have never seen this before and was taken by surprise. I contribute this to our stiff starter. Thank-you, my Stiff Squad for alway being there for me. I appreciate each and everyone of you! Love you tons! ❤️ @David Bachman @Candi Brown-McGriff @Donna Angelo @Linda Glantz

Week 5 | Crust & Crumb Academy That Night, Someone Brought Babka to a Hospital Room @Jen Dolan's Saturday started on fire. Her aunt was in the ER. Her son forgot his cleats. Her husband was scrambling. She barely got her dough started, so she improvised: Nutella mini babkas, thrown together before she had to race out the door. Most people would've skipped the bake entirely. Jen didn't. And that night, she came back to the thread to tell us what happened: "I had to come back tonight to share that I brought my aunt who is in the hospital a big slice of babka and it made her so happy. She loved it! Thanks for the recipe @Henry Hunter." Ten likes. @Colleen Vergara: "that's beautiful!" That's what this community is for. Not the perfect loaf. Not the clean braid. The fact that someone with her whole day on fire still made babka, and then used that babka to bring comfort to someone she loves in a hospital bed. If you want to know what Babka Saturday was about this week, start there. The Week Before Saturday The 999 comments in that working thread didn't happen by accident. Henry spent the entire week building toward it. Monday and Tuesday, he dropped the enriched dough intro: "Most of the bread we bake around here is lean..." That single post pulled 73 comments and 18 likes as bakers started realizing this week would be different. Wednesday, the Bread Debate Poll landed: Chocolate vs. Cinnamon vs. Savory. Fifty-seven votes. Seventy-nine comments. Sixteen likes. The community argued, chose sides, and got hungry. @Cheryl Odden opened a separate Babka Flavors thread the same day, and that one ran to 50 comments on its own as bakers started dreaming up what they'd actually make. Counter Culture with Dave and Henry went live Wednesday too. Thursday, Henry posted "Your refrigerator is not a waiting room" to set up the cold retard strategy, which earned 37 comments and 32 likes. A new quiz dropped alongside it, and @Buddy Tatum came in with a perfect score of 2,575. Friday was when the thread volume went vertical: "It's Friday. You know what that means" (63 comments), the Friday Night Secret (63 comments, 17 likes), Holiday Babka Tip! pinned at the top (81 comments, 24 likes), Mini Babka's post (23 comments, 20 likes). @N P went to the store with zero flour on Friday and was mixing dough by Friday night. By the time Saturday's working thread opened, the community had already been marinating in babka for five days.

I treated myself to a new starter jar form Sourhouse .It’s going to be much easier to keep Frida clean and scoop out what I need for baking . Transferred my original starter already. The old will be kept for discard. Happy baking.

Good morning bakers. It's Saturday and that means it's time to bake. This week we're making babka. All four versions are on the table today. You pick your path, bake at your own pace, and drop your photos, questions, and wins right here in this thread all day long. Here are your recipes: https://pantry.bakinggreatbread.com/?search=Babka All four are in there. Holiday Chocolate, Cinnamon, Roasted Garlic and Gruyère, and the yeasted base dough if you want to build your own way. Every recipe has built-in timers, dual measurements, and step-by-step phases so you can work right from your phone. Drop a comment right now and tell me which one you're making. That's your first move. If you're new here, say hello. Tell us it's your first bake-along. We want to know you're here and we're going to make sure you don't get left behind. There are experienced bakers in this community who will jump in and help answer questions throughout the day. You are not baking alone. A few things to know before you start: If your dough feels too soft or sticky during the butter incorporation, trust the process and keep going. Enriched dough always feels wrong before it feels right. If you're doing the overnight path and your dough is already in the fridge, pull it out cold and don't let it warm up before you shape. That cold butter is working for you. If you're starting from scratch this morning, give yourself more time than you think you need. Room temperature proofing on an enriched loaf can take two to three hours depending on your kitchen. I'll be here all day. Ask anything. No question is too basic. Let's get baking. ~ Henry ⭐🔥

April 8… House recipe: 70% hydration 1200g of total flour. 25% inoculation: Hank after it had more than doubled. Mixing / gluten development… 1 set of slap&folds & 1 lamination after 20 minute bench rest. Gluten development finished before putting the dough in the bulk fermentation vessel. No folds during bulk fermentation Temperature control: 80~85°. FORMULA: 100/70/2/25 RECIPE = 2 loaves 950g bread flour 100g WW flour 690g water 300g levain… 100% hydration 24g salt Total dough weight = 2064g Yesterday’s dough development that spent 14 to 16 hours in the cold proofing chamber also known as my fridge. Was just experimenting replacing 2 sets of slap and folds with 1 set of slap and folds + a lamination after a 20 minute bench rest. Just seeing if the layering from the lamination helps the oven spring or the crumb. Because of the very strong starter, Hank, the high inoculation and the average dough temperature over 80°f throughout the process I had these final shaped and in the fridge in about 3 hours from the time Hank got into the flour.