I made a half recipe of my sour cream pound cake toady and baked it in a 9x5 pan and it worked well.

First, thanks for all your wise counsel and for being my sounding board as I embark down this path. I cannot tell you how much it means to me.

I made challah. Six loaves and no rolls this time. I'm getting the process down and my braiding is getting better but it is still not where I want it.

I tried raw honey from Costco to replace the local honey I use normally. It's not as good but my testers didn't notice the difference. I do but I suspect that is because I know it is different. The local stuff is four or five times as expensive and food costs start to add up. I'll need between 8-10 lbs of flour a week. Even if I buy BRM bread flour from Vitacost which has the best price around here, that's still $12 just for flour. I'll use 10-11 eggs and we all know about that. I need to setup a 501c3 and that will help me contain some of those costs.

My distribution is shaping up too. I have people who will pick up the bread at our temple and deliver it.

If you're wondering why I'm doing this with challah (aside from the obvious) is that we have some very generous bakeries here who donate day old bread. And with many of their loaves the flavor actually peaks probably 12 to 24 hours after it comes out of the oven. So day-old may actually be a better product.

But challah on Saturday is too late. So if I can get this to people before sun down Friday they can have challah for the Sabbath.

On Saturday, I baked Honey Spelt Sourdough, a recipe that came from King Arthur. I do not have the Emile Henry 9x5 covered loaf pan, so I use my Emile Henry long baker to make a longer, shorter loaf. I used 2 Tbs. of my bubbly starter last night in the levain, rather than the 1 Tbs. specified, since I have a goopier starter. I added ¼ cup of special dry milk and cut the salt to 1 tsp. I have baked this bread several times, and have had it sag in the middle, so I replaced the King Arthur AP with Bob's Red Mill bread flour and used 1 ¼ cups. I replaced the 2 Tbs. butter with 2 Tbs. avocado oil. After the second rise in the long baker, I slashed it down the center, as the recipe specifies, rather than my usual side cuts, and baked it for 30 minutes before removing the top for five more minutes. That put it at over 200F for the interior temperature, about 10 degrees hotter than specified. It is a lovely looking loaf, with no center sagging. I look forward to slicing it tomorrow for lunch.

I also baked another recipe of oatcakes, as we were out of cookies to have with afternoon tea. The oatcake recipe goes together quickly. Tomorrow, I will see about baking more biscotti.

I made Date-Nut coffee cake, an old recipe passed on in my husband's family.

Thanks BA. My parents bought some challahs (the actual plural is "challot") but most of them were made by my mom sometimes with a little help from me.

To your point about inspiring others, we're starting with a dozen to see if we can make the logistics work. But if this is successful and the delivery folks can handle it I think I can make 24 on my own provided I can find an oven to handle that. If I can inspire some people and this grows then I can rope some people to come in at 4:00 am to shape. Or if I can just convince people to make their own and make an extra loaf to give away, this will have been a success.

I want to try your oatcakes but I need to find Scottish oats. All I can find here is steel cut and rolled. I may try to order some or I could probably grind some steel cut in the blender.

Matt used spelt a lot in the bakery. For a while it was really inexpensive. He was always switching around trying to keep good flavor and margins without raising his prices.

Mike - You are right. I need an NFP. The I can buy wholesale and there are a number of places to do that around here. Back when my restaraunt friends bought bread flour for $15 for 50 lbs. they would give me bags. But now it is just too expensive.