When I first drove out to the Midwest from the East Coast in June I forgot my sourdough starter. Gasp! I know, how could I? It's like a pet and I was very upset about leaving it and worried it would die before I could get back to MA to get it. Luckily for me I have a very good friend (and former roommate) who was kind enough to feed it for me. About three months later it made the 12 hour trip with me in a cooler in my car in the August heat. I had fed it a few times before leaving MA and lo and behold if it didn't perk right up! The long period of dormancy doesn't seem to have harmed it much. The first time I used it here in MI it doubled on the first feeding and more than doubled with the next. It smells a little different, so perhaps some of the microbes etc have died out. I'll have to make a few batches of bread to see if it tastes or behaves differently.
For my first sourdough loaf in the new place I made a seeded whole wheat sourdough from The Bread Bible. It was a really hearty loaf with a great texture and nutty flavour. I think I'm going to convert my starter to whole wheat next time so I can get even more whole wheat flour in it (I think the recipe is about 50% whole wheat).
I actually let the loaves proof for too long because I was ready to bake them but then had to put them in the fridge at the last minute (alas, life comes before bread), but they seemed to turn out okay anyway. I could detect some off flavours maybe from the dead yeast/overfermenting but my roommate couldn't tell. Overall it turned out well.
I've been working on variations of this recipe for a while and I think that I might have finally figured it out. I wanted to put all of my favorite things into one loaf of bread. I've done onions and cheese, apples and cheese, thyme and onions, etc. but they often didn't rise well enough or I would put too much stuff into the dough. My most recent loaf turned out well and I think I'm going to stick with this combination in the future.
First I made a basic sourdough bread at 67% hydration. Then I kneaded the apples, onions, cheese, thyme, and salt into the dough.
After about two hours (with folds every hour) I shaped the loaf and let the dough rise overnight in the fridge. The next morning I pulled the dough out of the fridge and turned the stove onto 500 to preheat with a stone. I baked the bread for about 40 minutes.
The apple slices I put on top unfortunately burned on the edges. I think I'll skip that step next time. But the loaf turned out okay and the inside was really light and soft.
The Fresh Loaf this really useful online community about bread and baking. It has a lot of great information on sourdough in particular. I converted the recipe to an excel spreadsheet to keep everything straight (it’s a 4 day process!). I’ll see if there’s a way to post the spreadsheet here, but for now I’ll just post the above link to the original recipe and tell you about any notes or changes I made and what did and didn’t work. It was one of the most involved sourdough recipes I’ve tackled yet and it was a lot of work, but the end result was definitely worth it. The cinnamon rolls didn’t last long!.
Day 0 (Thursday) 8pm, Freshen up starter
This was not part of recipe, but always needs to be done. I brought my starter to room temperature and fed it and tracked rise and fall so I had a sense of its peak rising time etc. My starter was at 100% hydration,.
Day 1 (Friday) 11pm, Build the levain
I fed my starter according to the recipe and let it sit at room temp until doubled, which was overnight or about 10 hours. The recipe calls for 850g of levain total, which is much more than I’m used to dealing with for a bread recipe. You can see here that my starter doubled and then some overnight.
Day 2 (Saturday) 10am, Build the dough and Bulk Fermentation
I made the mashed potatoes the night before so it could cool sufficiently and mixed the final dough Saturday morning. This was particularly difficult because I don’t have a mixer and was stirring everything in by hand. I also didn’t have any buttermilk, so I added a bit of lemon juice to milk, which has worked well for me in other recipes. I didn’t have a large enough bowl to let the whole thing bulk ferment so I split it into two bowls and left it on the counter at about 60°. I also made the filling that afternoon. I followed my mom’s recipe for cinnamon roll filling instead of the ingredients in this recipe, just because I like it better and it’s simpler.
Before
Rising
Day 2 (Saturday) 10pm-12am, Shaping
This was where I ran into a bunch of problems and diverted from the recipe’s instructions. The first step after the dough has doubled is to divide it into two pieces (check) and then roll it out into a rectangle. The recipe says that the dough should be sticky, which it definitely was. Then I spread the filling and rolled up the first rectangle.
At this point you’re supposed to be able to slice the logs into rounds and put them in a pan or on a cookie sheet to rise. The recipe says, “Slice each log into 8 or 12 rolls with serrated knife and place them just barely touching each other on baking parchment on sheet pan. Don't worry if log gets flattened as you slice each roll, you can straighten them out once placed on the sheet pan, and they should rise very high and straighten out when proofing”. No such luck. The dough was way too soupy and thin to roll. The first half turned into a cinnamon roll blob and was not even close to sliceable. I remedied this by putting the whole thing in a bundt cake pan, so that it turned out like a coffee cake kind of thing. It actually worked really well and it was nice to have both a cake and cinnamon rolls in the end. It’s a huge recipe by the way. I’d definitely cut it in half next time.
For the second half of the dough I chilled the dough before trying to roll it out so that it was at about 40-45° instead of 60°-65°. I also didn’t roll the rectangle out as thinly as it said I should and rolled the log tighter than the first time (the first time was sloppy I think due to my lack of skill and the slackness of the dough). The second batch held its shape much better and I was able to slice it into rounds. I think that I would chill the log again before slicing it next time to retain the roll's shape. You can sort of round them out once they’re turned on end in the pan, but the colder it is the easier it is and the less filling squishes out. They were also huge. If I made the full recipe again I’d split it into 3 logs I think. No one could finish a whole roll.
Okay so once the rolls are cut and on a cookie sheet they go into the fridge for an overnight/10-12 hour fermentation.
Day 3 (Sunday) 10am Bake
Bake the rolls right out of the fridge and make the icing while they’re in the oven. This part went just fine. In addition to the icing, I had some extra filling that we spooned on top of some of the rolls. Everyone loved them and I took a bunch to work to share. The bundt cake roll turned out well too.
Notes on the recipe: I think they have a noticable sour tang that I would like to avoid next time, although none of my friends thought so. It might go nice with the sourcream icing I guess, but I thought they should have been a little sweeter. I also don't think they needed to rise for as long as they did. I think next time I would bulk ferment in the fridge at 40°-45° instead of on the counter at 55°-65°. Then I would try to roll the logs, then chill again and slice them while the dough is cold. Mountaindog does suggest other ways of chilling the dough in the recipe, “(NOTE: I've not yet tried this, but it should also be possible to chill the un-sliced logs in frig overnight and slice just before baking, or freeze the logs for up to 1 month, take out the night before baking and defrost in frig. Next morning, remove from frig., slice, and let warm up at room temp about 1-2 hours before baking.)” So yeah, I think I’ll do something akin to that the next time.
Perhaps to cut down on the fermentation time and the sourness that develops I could also try a shorter fermentation on the counter instead of in the fridge once the rolls are cut. Or I could possibly play with my starter to get more lactic acid out of it than acetic acid. Who knows. They also required quite a bit longer to bake than the recipe suggested, even though my oven was at 400°. Overall, they were really tasty but difficult to shape, so their appearance wasn't quite as nice as I would have liked. It was a fun process and an interesting recipe!
Well, maybe not ever, but it was freaking delicious. Or frackin' delicious, as someone just said on NPR's Weekend Edition, "We have a frackin' good show today" and do we ever. ---
Connie inspired me to try this recipe for whole wheat sourdough english muffins. A quick search turned up several other recipes for sourdough based english muffins that varied in the amount of starter, milk, sugar, and flour they used, but I figured I'd give this one a whirl first since Connie had success with it. I mixed up the starter, flour, and milk last night and let it sit on the counter. This morning I added the salt, honey, and baking soda and then supposedly should have been able to knead it a few times and roll it out.
I had some trouble with this. In spite of the recipe author's assurances that the dough would have thickened up by the morning, I still had a super sticky mass that stuck to the counter after I tried to cut out rounds for the muffins. I put the dough in the fridge for half an hour or so and then kept my hands wet while working the dough, which helped quite a bit. After cutting the rounds, dusting them generously with cornmeal, and letting them rise for a bit, I fired up the griddle!
Griddle you say? Well, if I were at home, I probably would have used the cast iron skillet Marge so brilliantly gave me, but I'm out at Jay's house in Shutesbury right now dog sitting for the week. One of the several perks of this house is Jay's superior oven (balanced by his complete lack of large enough bowls for mixing bread). My oven kind of looks like a tinker toy next to his, although I would argue that mine's probably much cleaner. Heh, anyway :D The top of the oven has a flat cast iron griddle surface that's pretty large and really awesome. I heated it up and then tossed the english muffins on! I cooked the first few at too high of a heat. They browned on the outside before they were cooked through. I split them open with a fork and toasted the insides on the griddle before buttering them and EATING THEM! Right. I turned the heat down for the rest of the muffins and had much better "griddle spring" as a result. The second batch puffed up nicely before browning on the outside. Success!
Funny thing is, I actually never really eat english muffins. It's not that I don't like them, but they're not my favorite thing and given the array of breakfast options usually at hand, I'm not inclined to reach for an english muffin. I made these for Meg though, because she loves them and often goes through a pack of english muffins a week! And I must say, they were delicious! And super easy! Unlike many of the times when Lauren will give me that look that says "you're going to make a mess and it's going to be way more effort and time than it's worth" when I say that I could just make some prepared food thing at home rather than buy it at the store, this is a totally easy and feasible alternative to the store bought thing.
Okay, so I have some english muffins, now what? Well, I made a few vegetarian sausage patties, tossed those on the back of the griddle, and then cracked a couple of eggs on the front to fry while the sausage heated through. While those were cooking I turned on the espresso machine (another huge perk of Jay's house) and made a cappuccino (my skills in this sphere could really use some work, but it was tasty). Flip the sausages, pull the eggs off the heat, toss a bit of Vermont cheddar on top and some freshly ground pepper, then add the sausage and some ketchup (I know... I was going to make a hollandaise sauce or something, but I ran out of time and was just hungry) and ta-daaaaa! A delicious breakfast!
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This afternoon Meg and I are going to watch the Met's live broadcast of La Sonnambula at the Cinemark in Hadley. I'll probably stuff some english muffins in my pockets :)
I celebrated this new year by baking bread, a whole lot of it. Last year for new years, one of my goals was to learn to bake bread, specifically sourdough. Toward that end, I began researching sourdough on January 1st, 2008 and mixed up my first sourdough starter on January 4th, 2008. It took a couple of weeks for it to get going and do its yeasty thing, but by mid January I was baking my first loaves of sourdough bread. A year of mostly frequent (but often infrequent) regular feedings later, along with the help of roommates while I was away in June, my sourdough is still alive and kicking and one year old!
I have mostly fed my sourdough with AP flour, usually King Arthur, because that's what I have on hand. I occasionally fed it with whole wheat flour, particularly when I wanted to give it a boost before baking or if I wanted to incorporate some whole wheat into a bread that didn't call for it in the recipe. I have also used rye flour recently, but more on that later.
I usually keep one jar or container of starter in the fridge as a reserve, that consists of just flour and water (and natural yeast of course). In addition, I'll often have another container of starter in the kitchen at room temperature that I'm building up for whatever kind of bread I'm next making. I'll also have separate containers for any other kind of stuff that I might want to add to the starter beyond just flour and water.
On the non-wheat front, I've added a few other things to the starter at various points to see how they would alter the resulting loaves. I have added potatoes (sliced thin) and potato water, I have added whey (leftover from making cheese), milk, sugar (never in a starter that I've kept), malted barley, and I think I'm going to try adding beer to one this week.
I sometimes try to let the water I use to feed the starter sit out so that the chlorine can evaporate and it can come to room temperature etc, but mostly I just use lukewarm tap water from the kitchen faucet. I know that there are sourdough purists out there who use only filtered spring water and stone ground organic wheat to feed their starters, but I don't really have the time, energy or money for that and my starter doesn't seem to be any worse for the wear because of it.
I also don't really regulate the water to flour proportions I use when feeding my starter. Many of the "authoritative" websites and books I've read obsessively monitor the different water to flour ratios they use to feed their starters and any effects each has on the bread. I honestly don't often measure when feeding my starter. There, I said it. I usually shoot for roughly equal parts flour and water (for a 100% hydrated starter), but that varies give or take a quarter cup in either direction.
The new reformed 2009 joe however, is trying to be much more scientific (read: anal) about his sourdough starter. I have been keeping track of the performance of my starter (how much it rises in a given time and at what temperature etc) as well as its hydration level. I started to do this for two reasons, the first being that the past year has had a great deal of ups and downs as far as my sourdough breads have been concerned and now that I've had my fun getting to know sourdough and playing with different things, I'd like to move toward establishing more control and regularity, so that I can consistently turn out good loaves of bread. The second reason is that I decided to celebrate the new year by attacking a set of recipes that specify certain hydration levels for starters as well as particular methods for activating and building up one's starter prior to actually using it in the recipe. They were all sourdough rye recipes, but I'm going to use a separate post to talk about those.
All in all, 2008 was a great year in which I baked dozens and dozens of loaves of bread, many of which were sourdough, a few of which turned out really well, and several of which were complete disasters. I was thinking of declaring 2009 the year in which I tackled some other baked good, both scones and muffins were in the running, but I haven't decided yet. For now, January has been a month of pushing my bread skills to the next level and actually taking the time to research and plan before baking and then learn something from the results of each loaf I make, as opposed to my the hell with it I never really measure baking is just for fun approach in 2008. So far, so good!
When I first drove out to the Midwest from the East Coast in June I forgot my sourdough starter. Gasp! I know, how could I? It's like a pet and I was very upset about leaving it and worried it would die before I could get back to MA to get it. Luckily for me I have a very good friend (and former roommate) who was kind enough to feed it for me. About three months later it made the 12 hour trip with me in a cooler in my car in the August heat. I had fed it a few times before leaving MA and lo and behold if it didn't perk right up! The long period of dormancy doesn't seem to have harmed it much. The first time I used it here in MI it doubled on the first feeding and more than doubled with the next. It smells a little different, so perhaps some of the microbes etc have died out. I'll have to make a few batches of bread to see if it tastes or behaves differently.
For my first sourdough loaf in the new place I made a seeded whole wheat sourdough from The Bread Bible. It was a really hearty loaf with a great texture and nutty flavour. I think I'm going to convert my starter to whole wheat next time so I can get even more whole wheat flour in it (I think the recipe is about 50% whole wheat).
