After sampling an 'artisan inspired sourdough' loaf from the local supermarket and being sorely disappointed (think blotting paper) I had a go at making a predominantly white sourdough bread with a small percentage (10%) whole rye. Essentially a pain de campagne (minus any whole wheat flour)

For the wheat component, I deliberately went for a mixture of all purpose and strong bread flours to get a 'fluffier' result.  With hindsight, I should have gone for a slightly more open texture than 'fluffy'. I'll be sticking with the bread flour in future. The ratio of starter to flour was 1:2 giving a fairly short proofing time (4 hours). This resulted in a pleasantly sweet, mild flavour with barely any sour at all.

Gosh it's been too long since I posted any blog entries. 

Anyone who's seen my recent posts scattered throughout the forums will know I've been having difficulties with maintaining shape in my sourdough attempts as well as getting too much sour flavour (yes there really is such a thing...at least for my tastes! :) )

Today, a breakthrough came in the form of a 100% (no sifting) whole wheat miche  - it was less sour than recent attempts, still wonderfully nutty and flavourful and retained excellent shape throughout (with plenty of oven spring as a bonus).  It came out pretty much exactly as I planned it.  I'm really pleased, of course, and must give a lot of thanks to Eric and Bill - your tireless theorizing,  testing and experimentation were invaluable.  

More important than the delicious bread which I'm currently enjoying with slivers of Gjetost (mmmm brown norwegian yumminess!) - was what I learnt about my starter (Bubbles...yes I went ahead and christened my starter!).  I'm still organising and assimilating all the information in my mind but much has to do with the feeding cycle - something I already had suspicions about before.  Also learned a lot about how to apply a different strategy to whole wheat bread - using more starter/intermediate build in the final dough to get a milder result.

Well, that's all for now.  More stuffing my face to follow....

FP

After much thought, I feel it is time for me to switch directions in my baking.

I have a confession to make. I'm not the world's biggest fan of wholegrains or wholewheat breads.  For me they are forever associated with the blech I ate because 'it's good for you' when I was a child. This is my first attempt at reclaiming wholewheat for my palate. So far I'm quite happy! 

For my valentine this year I thought I'd send something a little different. The folks at Poilane did an awesome job.  

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/5927/anpan

Hope you enjoy the recipe. I'd love to hear about the results if you tried it.

Yes, it's me woefulbaker (Toby).  I decided to change my nick (as wisely suggested by several people).  In a short time and thanks to many of the members here at 'The Fresh Loaf',  my baking has finally started to yield results that I'm much happier with.  

Much much much more to learn (frankly who ever stops learning?) but at least I'm feeling a bit more positive about it.

All for now

Toby