ruthie, you're probably back by now, I hope you had a great trip. I've been doing "international" cookies too, LOL, but not because I decided to, just because that's what struck me. I just made cuccidati, a fig filled cookie that a friend sent me and I loved them. I've made Venetian rainbow cookies with almond paste, and I've made good old American toll house cookies and grandma's molasses cookies and peanut butter cookies. Elery and I are making cannoli tomorrow, and I've done the Scottish shortbread and the spritz and the pfefferneuse. I think I'm not going to do any more baking except cut out and frosted sugar cookies with the grandkids! Now, that pannetone. Here is a recipe from King Arthur Flour for a traditional pannetone, it requires an overnight resting of the "biga", which is just the yeast with a bit of water and some of the flour, kind of like a sourdough "starter". The bread is made using the biga the next day. I didn't have orange oil or the special seasoning thing you can only get from King Arthur Flour, LOL, so I used the vanilla and some orange extract. My family loves this recipe and since it uses dried fruit instead of the candied stuff, I like it too. I do not like candied fruit at all. Anyway, it's easier than it looks and the recipe came from King Arthur Flour: Overnight Panettone This traditional Italian holiday bread will stay fresh longer when it's made with an overnight starter. Biga (Overnight Starter) 3/4 cup (3 1/8 ounces) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour 1/16 teaspoon yeast (just a pinch) 1/3 cup (2 5/8 ounces) water Dough all of the biga (above) 2 1/4 cups (9 1/2 ounces) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour 1/4 cup (2 ounces) water 2 large eggs 1/4 cup (1/2 stick, 2 ounces) unsalted butter 1 1/4 teaspoons salt 1/2 teaspoon Fiori di Sicilia flavoring OR 1 teaspoon vanilla + 1/8 teaspoon orange oil 2 1/4 teaspoons SAF Gold instant yeast OR 1 tablespoon instant yeast 1/3 cup (2 1/4 ounces) sugar 1/2 cup (3 ounces) golden raisins 1/2 cup (2 1/4 ounces) slivered dried apricots 1/2 cup (2 ounces) dried cranberries or flavored fruit bits 1/2 cup (2 1/2 ounces) dried pineapple, chopped 2 tablespoons orange or lemon zest The Biga: Combine the biga ingredients in a medium-sized mixing bowl, cover, and allow them to rest overnight (8 to 12 hours). Dough: Combine all of the dough ingredients except the fruit, and mix and knead them togetherby hand, mixer or bread machinetill you've made a soft, smooth dough. Allow the dough to rise, covered, for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, or until it's puffy (though not necessarily doubled in bulk). Gently deflate the dough, and knead in the fruits and zest. Shape the dough into a ball and place it in a panettone pan or other straight-sided, tall 1 1/2- to 2-quart pan. Cover the pan and let the dough rise till it's just crested over the rim of the pan, about 1 hour. Bake the bread in a preheated 400°F oven for 10 minutes; reduce the oven heat to 375°F and bake an additional 10 minutes; then reduce the heat to 350°F and bake for 25 minutes, tenting with aluminum foil if the crust appears to be browning too quickly. Remove the panettone from the oven and cool completely. This recipe reprinted from The Baking Sheet Newsletter, Vol. III, No. 2, December 1991 issue. Annie

I looked up the most popular 5 grain formula for you :) It is a Hamelman recipe from the book Bread. He is well liked and has wonderful recipes in his book that are all fool proof and well edited. Hope you enjoy . If you have any questions please ask. Multigrain BreadSoaker 60g instant oats, roughly crushed by hand 20g 9 grain cereal mix 50g flax seeds 20g pot barley or sunflower seeds 125g boiling water 9g salt Final Build All of soaker 390g bread flour 110g whole wheat flour 20g rye flour 310g water at room temperature 3g dry active yeast Seed Topping Mix Equal parts sunflower seeds, rolled oats, flax seeds Directions For soaker, combine all ingredients and stir to combine. Let sit covered for 30 minutes or until room temperature. For final build, put water, flours and yeast (in that order) in bread maker and start artisan dough program. Let machine mix until all ingredients combined into a wet shaggy mass. When kneading cycle begins, press pause button and let the dough autolyse for 30 mins. Allow kneading cycle to begin. When Mix-Ins signal alerts, add in the soaker ingredients. Bring together to ball of dough with a wooden spoon if needed. When cycle is done, remove dough from machine onto a lightly floured surface and knead fro approx. 5 mins. Dough should be at a medium gluten development and when windowpane test is performed, should be able to stretch the dough to translucency without tearing it. Let the dough rise in a lightly greased bowl, covered, till it doubles in size, at least two and a half hours. Stretch and fold at 45 minutes and again after another 45 mins. Ready a banneton or line a bowl with a cloth. Dust it with rice flour and seed topping mix. Shape the dough. Put the dough top side down into the prepared banneton or cloth-lined bowl. Cover with a towel or plastic wrap and let it rise for an hour - hour and half. Preheat oven to 475 degrees. If youâÂÂre baking on a sheet pan with roaster, put this in the oven as well. When the final proof is done, gently upend the dough onto baking surface, slash it 3 or 4 times and bake for 25 minutes with steam. Turn the oven down to 375 degrees F., remove the steam and continue baking till done, another 10-15 minutes. If unsure about doneness, use a thermometer and remove the dough when its internal temperature is 200 degrees.

I bake in cast iron all the time. I don't have a Romertopf . My cast iron is a Le Creuset and also a very old plain cast iron pot . Both have lids. Both go into the oven at 500 for 30 min. and then I remove them and lower the bread into the preheated pot. I replace the cover, place them back in the oven and lower the oven to 460. Bake 15 min with lid on and 15 min with lid off. I will link pics below. To get your bread into the pot, either hot or cold , simply place a piece of parchment paper over the basket that the bread is rising in and let the bread come out onto the paper. Then I tear off the extra to make a shape with handles and simply lower into the pot. I have been doing this for years...way longer than Chad at the bakery that become famous for baking in cast iron :) Here are some pics. I will be glad to answer any questions. You can look on The Fresh Loaf and do a search for info on this type of baking as well as using your clay pot. I know there are folks on there that have done so. c bread dough rises in cloth lined baskets ( old napkins that are heavily floured with rice/white flour 1/2 and 1/2 combination) dough turned out onto parchment and parchment then torn to make handles dough lowered in to preheated 500 degree pots using the parchment finished loaf still in pot loaves cooling ...I usually bake 6 loaves...just keep placing pots back in oven and reheating with lids on and removing loaves from fridge where they have retarded...turning out onto parchment and lowering into hot pot

I have a Viking combi steam, so the settings don't actually relate, and have played with a number of different approaches. Just wanted to chime in to point out that the 0% setting means that it is vented to the open, and the 30% setting means that no steam is introduced, but the vents are closed so that any steam coming out of the bread stays in the oven. I make ciabatta very often, some sourdough boules, and batards ( a baguette is too long to fit in my oven) I normally use only 100% whole wheat, so my results may be different from yours, but I find that I miss a higher starting temp. My oven can't go any higher than 440 F. I have tried using a baking stone with a preheat using the combi steam function for about 1/2 hour, and that works okay, though I have a sneaking suspicion that the steam is getting into the stone, and then comes out when I turn off the steam after the first few minutes ( just a suspicion, could be totally off base on that ). I usually switch to a regular convection oven setting once the bread has been in 3 or 4 minutes. When I remember, I also open the door briefly to let out any moisture, then reduce the temp setting. Unfortunately, the Viking doesn't allow custom settings with changes in modes, so I can't program it to do that on its own. I am not sure I understand your first step - if you set it to 100% steam ( in my oven that would be steam only ) it is limited to 212 F . To go above that I have to use a combi mode. The Viking doesn't have steam pop, but if I were you, I would leave it in at 100% steam and continue to steam pop during the first 4 or 5 minutes, then set it to 0 % for the rest of the bake. For sourdough, a longer steam time can help.