Fall is in the air, time to start baking again.

Over the course of the last summer I think I may have baked 1 or 2 loaves of bread.  I even managed to kill one of my favorite starters, a nice well aged Richard Packham 1965 SF starter.  Fear not, I have back up's.
With temps dropping along with the leaves I figured it was time to fire up another starter and get ready for the coming indoor baking season.  The starter I chose to use this time is a Sourdough International San Francisco starter.  I started with a dried back up and spent the last week feeding and nurturing it back to life.  Today it was time to do something with it.  Below is the recipe I'm creating today.

Ingredients

350g white flour
260g active starter
60g whole wheat flour
30g fresh milled rye flour
25g fresh milled spelt flour
25g fresh milled buckwheat flour
13g Tuscan herb salt
1  sprig fresh chopped rosemary
1 clove fermented garlic chopped fine
292g water - room temp

Prepare the dough

1. At least 12 hours before beginning (you can do this the night before), feed starter as follows: Remove
starter from refrigerator and add equal parts flour and room-temperature water (I use about 130 g each,
which replenishes what I'll be using in the bread). Stir/whip well, incorporating oxygen, and leave on
the counter top, with the cover slightly ajar. Starter should be bubbling and lively when you begin your
bread.
2. Place a large bowl on your scale and zero out the scale. Now add the flours, one at a time, zeroing
out the scale after each addition.  Add the starter and the water.
3. Mix thoroughly with a wet hand until the dough is homogeneous. Mist a piece of plastic wrap with
vegetable oil spray, press it directly onto the dough, and leave the dough to autolyse for 45-60 minutes.

Kneading and fermentation

4. Remove dough from bowl and flatten out on the kneading surface.  Add salt, chopped rosemary and chopped garlic and knead by hand 7-9 minutes.  You can use a stand mixer with a dough hook for 2-3 minutes if you like but it takes away the joy of working the dough by hand. Knead until dough is elastic and smooth.
5. Clean out and dry the mixing bowl (no soap), mist with vegetable oil spray, and replace the dough.
Place the oiled plastic wrap back onto the dough. Ferment at room temperature (68 -72 degrees is ideal)
for 4 to 5 hours.

Form and proof the boule

6. Using your hand or a flexible pastry scraper, remove the dough to a floured counter top.
7. Gently press down to form a disk about an inch thick. Try not to press out the gas bubbles or mess
with it too much.
8. Fold the edges into the center. Move around the disk several times, pulling and gathering, tighter and
tighter, trying to create some surface tension, as you form a ball. Finish with a just few seconds of half-
rolling, half-dragging across the floured counter top, moving the boule in a tight circular motion.
9. If you don't have a banneton or basket for proofing boules, simply line a kitchen colander with a
well-floured linen napkin and place the boule inside, seam side up.
10. Cover with same piece of plastic wrap and set aside to proof, 11⁄2 to 2 hours. While dough is
proofing, place a cast iron dutch oven with the lid on it on the bottom shelf of the oven. Preheat oven to its highest setting.

Score and bake

11. After 1 1/2 to 2 hours, when the dough is proofed (another term for the second rise), it should
have increased in volume by about half, and feel slightly springy.  Remove the plastic wrap and  sprinkle with rice flour or corn meal. Open the oven and setting the lid to the dutch oven aside, grasp the basket and flip the dough into the hot dutch oven.  Be careful not to burn yourself.
12. Make several symmetrical slashes (or grignes) with your lame or razor. A "tic-tac-toe" grid is a
good way for beginners to start.
13. Immediately spritz the top of the loaf with water from a spray bottle and put the lid back on the dutch oven. Try to minimize the time the oven door is open.
14. Set oven temperature to 480 degrees F.
15. After 20-25 minutes, remove the lid from the dutch oven.
16. Bake until loaves register 210 degrees F in center, about 50 to 60 minutes) with an instant-read
thermometer.
17. Return bread to oven, with oven off and door closed, for 10 to 15 minutes.
18. Remove bread to a rack and cool for at least 2 hours before serving.

The finished loaf.

I'll take this one to work Monday and share it with my co-workers.

An inspired Breakfast idea

Use a biscuit cutter to cut a hole in the middle of a slice of bread and toast over a medium heat in a frying pan.  I used homemade chive butter in the pan to toast it with.

 Drop an egg in the hole after both sides of the bread are lightly toasted.

 Add slices of tomatoes.  I used some sweet golden cherry tomatoes out of my garden.

 After 2-3 minutes, add shredded cheese.  Sharp cheddar was my choice.

 Cover with a lid to let the cheese melt.

Breakfast is served.

Thoughts on hand made bread - Time takes time.

Hand made bread, "The Staff of Life", is not a lost art or even all that hard to do, it just takes something that most people in this fast paced world we live in are are in short supply of, time.  People ask me how I manage to hold down a full time job, enjoy randonneuring and the training that goes with it, stay active with a fellowship I belong to and still find time to make hand made sourdough bread.  The answer is really very simple.  If something is important to you, you make the time.  Making bread by hand, no machines other than the oven, is one of the most relaxing and rewarding experiences you can have.  If you think about it, just a short 130 years ago, all bread was made this way and it was never given a second thought.  Today people eww and aww when you show up with hand made bread like it's other worldly.  Nonsense!  I've only been doing this a short time and the results I've experienced can be experienced by anyone, it just takes a little time set aside each week to play and experiment in the kitchen.  All the techniques I've learned, the recipes I use are there for the asking, it just takes a little research and daring to expand beyond what you read.  Combining this recipe with that one, combining different techniques with different equipment.  The worst that can happen is that it doesn't turn out the way you thought it would and what do you do with the mistake?  You get to eat it anyway!  Some of my worst mistakes, while not very visually appealing, most were delicious, some weren't.  I try something different with almost every loaf I bake.  I make the time to make the bread because the bread is important to me even if I'm not going to be the one eating it.  I think sometimes it's just the process that drives me to it, other times, because I miss the simpler things in life and what can be simpler than making bread? 

I'll end my rant or rave or what ever you want to call this post by sharing today's efforts in the kitchen.  Tomorrow I'll tell you what went into making these from start to finish.

Enjoy

Time to revive the pot and this blog.

It's hard to believe it's been almost a year since I posted an update.  A few things have happened since my last post.  I finally let the last of my Amish Friendship Bread fade away, I've read a few more books on sourdough baking and I've scaled back to using just one starter recently.  I've also refined some techniques.
The Friendship bread starter was a causality of a refrigerator that died before I could get it replaced.  I guess I could make another one out of an existing starter  but I'm trying to eat a little healthier these days.
The books I've read and really recommend for anyone into sourdough baking are, in no particular order:

1. The Bread Bakers Apprentice by Peter Reinhart
2. 52 Loaves by William Alexander
3. Jake O'Shaughnessy's Sourdough Book by Timothy Firnstahl
4. Artisan Bread Everyday by Peter Reinhart

The starter I've settled on lately is the Richard Packham 1965 San Francisco I have in my collection.  It has a great flavor and it's hyper-active when fed on a regular basis.  I've been using it so much lately I just keep it on the counter top and feed it every day.
This morning I decided to make a double batch of bread, which in most cases would be two boules, but the bread had other plans.  I didn't plan on doing that when I got up this morning, but I noticed that I had quite a bit of starter working when I went in to make coffee, so I figured I'd use it all in one fell swoop.  It worked out fairly close.  I was 20 grams shy on starter for the recipe  but that left just enough in the jar to replenish my supply of starter, maybe a tablespoons worth.  You only need a tablespoon or so to get the things going again and I'm not too concerned about being a 20 grams shy in the recipe that calls for 520 grams of starter.  This isn't rocket surgery.
To revive the sourdough pot I added 195 grams of bread flour (one and one half cups) and 236 grams of water (one cup) to the remaining sourdough starter left clinging for dear life to the sides and bottom of the sourdough container.  In this case, a food grade one quart plastic container.

I'm not going to go into the bread that I'm making right now in this post, I'm going to save that for a future posting.  My reasoning being that I need to be able to devote more space to the changes I'm made to my recipes and techniques.  Those would make this post overly long and I think it deserves it's own post.  Today was just a chance to re-read some of my old posts to see where I've been, where it's taken me and to revive my interest in sharing my knowledge that I've gleaned over the last year.

Til next time, keep baking.

Whole wheat bread with extra sharp cheddar cheese and garlic

 I'm going to be trying something a little different in the kitchen today. I've been wanting to try adding some cheese and/or garlic to the dough and see how it comes out. I originally envisioned using Gorgonzola or a strong blue cheese to compliment the full whole wheat flavor of this bread but the store was out of Gorgonzola so I went with the extra sharp cheddar.

The starter I plan to use for it comes from King Arthur flour. This stuff is really hyper active when fed on a regular basis. I've had it out on my counter for the last two days and I've been feeding it twice a day. The last feeding was this morning and it was starting to froth out the top of the container I had it in by the time I got around to starting the recipe. The beauty of todays loaves is that I have no idea how much cheese or garlic to add to each loaf so I'm just going to wing it.. I bought a 8 oz block of cheese to use so I'll cube that up and divide that up among the 3 loaves I plan to make. The garlic I added to the dough during the initial mixing. I used about 5 teaspoons. YMMV , add what you're comfortable with. Me, I really like garlic. The cheese I'm going to add just prior to the final rise when I roll out the dough and ball it up into the final shape. That way I know that most of the cheese will be distributed evenly through the dough. The final rise will be a retarded rise, taking place in the refrigerator over night. I have discovered that a slow final rise really adds a twang to the bread.  From what I've read recently, the cold rise allows the enzymes more time to do their little conversion work.  Before baking I take the bread out of the refrigerator, slash it while it's cold and let it come up to room temp. This has the added benefit of making it easier to slash and the final warming allows the dough to expand more opening up the cuts made.

Todays bread is going to see a few other changes in technique  that I've been wanting to try also. I plan to make 3 small boules and use parchment paper on top of the cooking stone that I bake with. I'm either going to wind up with 3 wonderful loaves of bread or this is going to be a complete disaster. I don't see any middle ground on this one. Here's hoping for the best.
Well the loaves are baked and didn't turn out too bad.  I haven't cut into one yet but they look nice.  When I took them out of the refrigerator this morning I realized that I had a small problem, how to transfer them from the dinner plates they were resting on to the baking stone.  I don't own a peel.  I wound up using another dinner plate over the top and just inverted them.  That allowed me to get them on the stone but it did have the effect of deflating them somewhat and wiped out the score marks I had on them.  Live and learn.  I did get a decent amount of oven spring so that helped.  Next time I think I'm going to try and proof them in a basket of some sort. 
Another thing I discovered on this bake is that parchment paper is wonderful stuff.  I did not have any sticking problems at all and laid it directly on the cooking tile, it may even be reusable.

 

Starter ready for action

Say cheese, and garlic

Resting after the 1st knead

After kneading

Cheese added after rolling out

Shaped and on a dinner plate for final rise

Bagged and ready for the final rise in the fridge

2 of the 3 loaves baked

The last loaf baking

My current mostest favorite sourdough bread recipe

I'm not sure where I came across this recipe but I've been baking in for the last few weeks with a couple of different starters in my collection and everyone raves about it.  

I currently have 3 loaves on their final rise in the fridge now, I'll post some pictures of the final product tomorrow night when they come out of the oven.

Sourdough Whole Wheat Bread 1

List of ingredients:

**3 cups of sourdough sponge (See notes below)

3 to 3 ½ cups of unbleached white flour

¼ cup sugar or 1/8 cup honey and 1/8 cup agave syrup or ¼ cup of either (I prefer ¼ cup of honey)

¼ cup melted shortening (I use ¼ cup melted butter)

1 ½ cup milk

1 Tbsp salt

4 cups whole wheat flour

2 fresh eggs

1 cup old fashioned oats

1 Tbsp of sesame or ¼ cup sunflower seeds

**Sponge notes: Set the sponge the night before from one cup of sourdough starter, 2 ½ cups unbleached flour, and 2 cups of warm water. Be sure to put one cup of your starter back in your starter jar before you start the recipe. You will be using 3 cups of sponge in the recipe.

Let all ingredients come up to room temperature. Place 3 cups of starter in your Kitchen Aide bowl, or whatever bowl you use to make bread. Mix in one cup of the white flour and the honey/agave syrup or sugar. Add the salt and 1 cup of dry old fashioned oats, the beaten eggs and mix well with dough hook (or by hand).

Pour in the fairly warm milk and the melted butter. Mix well again. Dump in the sesame or sunflower seeds. Add 4 cups of whole wheat flower. Add about one more cup of unbleached white flour and knead about 8 minutes in the Kitchen Aide or by hand until it is ready to put on for the first rise.

Grease the inside of a large bowl with Crisco or whatever you use as a pan release agent. Put the dough in the bowl and cover with a towel. Set in a warm spot for rise for about 2 hours...then punch down, recover and let rise for 30 more minutes. Take our of the bowl, knead for about 30 seconds to get rid of any air pockets in the dough...then cut into 3 equal f you are using 4 1/2” x 8 1/2” pansor cut into two pieces if you want to make two LARGE loaves. Form into loaves (I ball the dough, flatten with a rolling pin and roll and press, sealing the edges by pinching closed) and put in non stick sprayed pans. ( I prefer Pyrex or cast iron loaf pans) The dough should just be touching the ends of the pans. Brush the tops with beaten egg white and sprinkle on some dry old fashioned oats and some sesame or sunflower seeds. Cover and let rise in a cool spot over night, or if your in a rush, in a warm spot for about a hour and a half or until ready to bake. I prefer to let mine do the final rise in the fridge over night and let it warm up on the counter for a couple of hours the next day before baking.

When ready to bake, bake in a preheated 375 degree over for about 45 minutes for 2 large loves and 40 minutes for smaller loaves. When golden brown and the internal temperature is around 185F to 195F (using an instant read thermometer), and the loaves have shrunken away from the sides, they are done. Remove from the pans and place on a wire rack, covered with a clean towel to cool. For a softer crumb, brush with melted butter when they come out of the over.

Thoughts about pan release spray and better alternatives

I've been gone for awhile, off on a little cycling adventure across the US, but I'm back and baking again.

One of the things I was thinking of today was what I use for a release agent for my baking pans.  When I started baking I was using a leading no stick cooking spray but the thought of what may be coming out of an aerosol can and the disposal of the can always bothered me so I started looking for alternatives.   For regular cooking I use a pump up bottle with regular cooking oil in it to oil the pans but it wasn't really suitable for what I wanted so I went looking for something better.  What I ultimately came up with was a mixture of liquid lecithin from the local food co-op and regular cooking oil.  The mixture I use is 2 parts lecithin to one part oil. It's too thick to spray from a pump up sprayer so I just keep the mixture in a glass jar and brush it on the bread pans with a pastry brush.  I store the liquid lecithin/oil mix in the fridge and just stir it up with a chop stick before I use it.  The bottle of liquid lecithin stays in the fridge as well.  Just a little goes a long way and I feel that it's a much healthier alternative to canned sprays.  It's also 100% organic and works better than the canned sprays or just coating the pans with oil or butter.  It also does not impart any added flavors to the breads or baked goods.

Give it a try, I think you'll be happy with the results.