Apple Cider Hearth Bread

Well, that's the last of the Apple Cider Hearth Bread from Farmer's Market.

I have stored it in the fridge - which makes it a keen candidate for the toaster. I was peckish this morning and had some kona/peruvian coffee. (I will let you all know more about home roasting at a later date. Can't wait? try http://www.sweetmarias.com/.)

This bread is made with several goodies that make it special.

First, is that it has a preferment with unpasteurized apple cider from Farlow's Orchard between West Middleton and New London on road 200 South in western Howard County. It's a family run orchard and just making the short drive out there takes you to a very special place and time.

Second, the bread has red-wine-soaked-fruits. Not just raisins, but figs, apricots, dates, cherries, and sometimes even pecans. These fruits and sometimes nuts represent the time I spent growing up in Michigan and California. The wine is from France, though. Even though I spent such a short time there, French wine made my soul breathe.

Third, there are the wheats, unbleached and unbromated, both whole wheat and sifted wheat are kneaded together and then allowed to slowly rise. We coax all of these great flavors together - maybe not coax but rather herd them - into a symphony of fall flavors that make great breakfast toast as well as a tasty shovel for fresh cheeses like goat and creme fraiche. These wheats represent the extraordinary experience I had living in Southwest Kansas. Southwest Kansas is a closely held secret idyll with connections to Native American life, the pioneers and settlers, and is now in the middle of America's agricultural heartland - not to mention the great petroleum reserves in the sandy plains.

I hope to get a few more batches of this bread baked before it is too late.