BBA Challenge Greek Celebration Bread

Bread 2 in our BBA Challenge turned out beautifully.  I opted to add the glaze and felt it added the sweetness that enhanced the bread just enough.  The glaze is a bit sticky, however, if that bothers anyone.  The bread itself has a good mildly spicy flavor from all the flavorings added and an excellent moist texture.  I added equal amounts of light and dark raisins, dried sour cherries and walnuts.  The bit of tang from the cherries and golden raisins was sooo good and balanced by the sweeter dark raisins and the honey glaze.  I had some organic sesame seeds that tasted somewhat raw to me so I toasted those for about 10 minutes in a 350 degree oven before I sprinkled them on top.

I am considering making this bread for my little grandson's baptism as it is a Celebration Bread.

The barm was the starter I chose for this bread.  It was an interesting process.  If anyone saw the old movie, "The Blob," this seemed to fit.  I found, twice, that I apparently had a very healthy, perhaps somewhat aggressive, starter here.  The first time I misjudged the size of the container I would need and it crawled out from under the plastic wrap and ended up coming down the side onto the counter.  The second time I had refreshed it and let it sit out to ferment--planning to refrigerate it about 4 hours later.  I fell asleep watching "Top Chef" and woke up to go to bed.  Barm sat on the counter all night.  The next day it was out of its jar, on the counter and onto the floor!  It's still fine and I have now tucked the remaining barm into my freezer to slow its growth until I need it again.  Karen's barm has not risen so aggressively--we can't figure out the difference.  I did have some wild grapes in my kitchen a couple days so I wonder if some wild yeasts from the grapes could have affected my barm.  Anyone know??