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Dicided to make a dark rye because I wash making bangers with French Green Lentils for dinner. Love the taste of the rye with this dish.

I used two different poolish mixtures, I don't know why I guess I wanted to try it since I have never done it before. One was Sprouted Whole Wheat and the other FA AP Flour. Here they are floated around in their warm bath ready to be mixed.

Toasted Caraway Seeds

out of the oven

Pretty good crumb

and it all comes together

Devoured in record time!

Cheers All,

Wingnut

A little background info first.

Not being experienced with pancakes (crumpets), and having only ever made ordinary ones twice in my life, I was a bit unsure of how to go about achieving a tasty treat using the sourdough starter which I felt reluctant to throw away. I do remember the few odd occasions that mom made them for sunday tea but they were never a regular on the menu........ so a very special treat indeed!

So I did my homework. I found and tested a recipe for regular pancakes and with help from some of the bread friends on TFL I found a "sort-of" recipe using sourdough. From there on it was a case of working on what looked right and pure gut-feel and I managed to cobble the two recipe's together. This is my recipe as it stands today and I will try to include all my tips and observations gathered in the process. If you find that a bit tedious, remember we all have to start somewhere and this is my story so you can just skip the uninteresting bits......... I hope this helps someone else who is struggling and they have as much fun and enjoyment as I do........ Happy baking!

Starter Prep:

170gm seed starter (from the fridge. I have a whole wheat starter and its very active). You are now going to feed it with......

170gm flour ( I just used my normal bread flour). And.......

170gm water (just slightly warm but please... not hot)

Mix  together till well blended. It should have the consistency of a nice smooth batter. Make sure that your bowl is large enough to accommodate the increase in amount later as you don't want to mess around with the batter once its puffed up.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap leaving a small vent open and set aside for approx 6 hours or till its nice and bubbly and increased in volume. I'm sure overnight would be just fine on the counter top and it would also depend on room temp. Warm weather will make it all happen quicker........

This is what it looks like when ready for the next step.

Pancake Batter:

All the starter as above.

2 Table spoon Maple syrup - 60ml (honey would be nice!)

2 Table spoon melted butter.

2 large eggs.

¼ tsp salt.

2 tsp baking powder. ( maybe less - I'm not sure about this yet)

Whisk the eggs then  add the syrup/honey and melted butter. Give it a good whisk to mix well.

Add egg mixture to starter stirring gently. You don"t want to beat all the bubbles out of it but make sure it's well blended. Add salt and stir in well.

Sprinkle the baking powder on top and gently fold in to blend well. I used a wooden spoon for this and only till it was all mixed. A light touch is what is required here......

At this stage the batter seemed to froth puff up like a fluffy omelet..... very interesting.

Pour into buttered griddle or frying pan and cook till golden then flip and repeat.

Serve hot with a blob of butter and lashings of maple syrup or stack with bananas and cinnamon sugar.

Enjoy!

It has been a while sinceI baked anything without yeast! 

While I havent had enough sourdough discard, n my mom is calling out for crackers, so i thought why not bake it with the most basic ingredients - wholewheat flour, seeds, oil and whey. 

1 1/4 cups whole-wheat flour

1/2 cup toasted sesame seeds (toast it till golden brown)

1/2 teaspoon salt (set aside pinch of salt to sprinkle on top)

5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil or sesame oil

6 tablespoons whey, as needed (u might need more, it should be a stiff dough)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees with the racks positioned in the middle. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. Mix together the flour, sesame seeds and salt in a mixing bowl, in the bowl of a stand mixer, or in a food processor fitted with a steel blade. If using a mixing bowl, add the oil and cut in with a fork. If using a stand mixer, mix at medium speed. In a food processor, pulse until the mixture is crumbly. Add the water, and mix with your hands, or at medium speed in a mixer or in the food processor, until you can gather the dough into a ball.

3. I roll it out on a piece of parchment so i can transfer it directly onto the baking sheets, then I cut it with a pizza cutter.

4. Bake 15 to 20 minutes until golden browned. Remove from the heat, and allow to cool on racks.

I was trying for croissants, ended up with butter everywhere, divided the dough into six pieces, tried to roll it into a ball, shaped it with an apple corer, gave each an egg bath and sprinkled sesame seed in the center. Looks like crap but tastes absolutely wonderful!

So now that my culture is alive and well I'm starting to play.  Things I've learned.  It's slow, slower than sourdough (I was told this and its true).  It really likes to be warm (78-80)  If much cooler it barely acts at all unlike sour which will just go slower it just won't get going at all.  Second and third builds start to act more like a sweet levain and timings shorten significantly.  As a combo with SD it adds nice structure and oven spring and balances sourness (this is great if desired but if you want sour this will not help).  

Below are both 100% YW breads.  First is a Currant and Fennel which is built off a levain made with the actual yeast water.  The following are baguettes which were a second build from the extra levain.  

fennel and currant crumb.  Maybe coulda used a bit more proofing but the taste and texture were quite nice.

Overall a decent sweet baguette but poor keeping quality and not as good as Sour/IDY.  Next up will be SD YW combo which I have high hopes for.  

Happy Baking All

Josh

Found a dough sitting in the freezer when I cleared up my fridge.

A fresh loaf for breakfast tomorrow. Yippee!

So you all know how I have been going on about pancakes (crumpets/flapjacks) and scones....... like a real ninny whining about a recipe...... Well here they are and I will never make ordinary pancakes/crumpets again!!!!!!!

This is the starter ready to go.

With the eggs and other ingredients added. Some baking powder in there and it frothed up like a puff ball!

Served warm with a blob of butter and lashings of maple syrup.

This was hubbies idea..... Banana sandwich with a liberal shake of cinnamon sugar!

I have never seen anything get devoured soooo fast! If anyone wants the details, just comment here and I'll post the recipe but it's just oh-so-easy!

Hi all! Been a while since my last post; didn't do many breads last month. Mostly pita and naan-breads, Turkish pizza etc. 

My sourdough culture had been dormant in the refridgerator for a while, so I decided to refresh it again. After half a day it was getting active again. 

But since it was also almost midnight, I decided to refresh the sourdough again, but also make a dough with part of it (before the 2nd refresh). So I wrote up a formula; 25% ww flour, 75% flour, 2% salt, 70% water. Calculated for 1 kg total weight. Replaced 80 grams flour and 80 grams water with 160 grams (100% hydr) sourdough. Kneaded with mixer. 

Covered and let rise for about 8 hours. Next morning dough was shaped in a batard, and left to proof in a banneton. Final proof took about 4-5 hours. Baked for 30 minutes on a baking stone with steam. Then 10 minutes in oven off with door left ajar. 

It was a very tasty bread! Especially with some butter.

The buckwheat, to my surprise reduced the grainy flavor of the bread relative to other whole grain breads. It had a nice nutty flavor. The loaf was dense but nice. I should've been more careful in following directions! I didn't follow keeping the oven open the last 5 minutes the crust became a bit too crusty!

Here's the link to the recipe on Bernd's Bakery, note the recipe first starts in German, followed by the English version. Great site! I was really impressed with the level of details on creating bread cultures - take a look!

http://berndsbakery.blogspot.ch/2013/08/bio-buchweizenbrot-organic-buckwheat.html

Sid

This morning's bake was exactly the same as my last bake of this type:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/35521/yw-sweet-levain-boule-forkish-style

The only difference was trying to get my shaping tighter. Getting there, but still needs work. I will give another half loaf away and bake one off again tomorrow. People are always happy to receive my bread and making people happy makes me feel good.

This made delicious sandwich! I guess there were a couple of changes, I put the extra YW in the fridge overnight to use this morning and I think it developed greater flavour and character. It sure did look robust!

Today's sandwich was smoked chicken, home cured and smoked c=bacon, lettuce and tomato with lots of mayo and Rene's Garlic Caesar dressing. Great sandwich!

I smoked a whole chikcken for dinner last night, brined it overnight, rested in the fridge for the day, gae it a dry rub and smoked @ 225F with hickory and maple until an internal temperature of 140F, then onto a hot grill for 5 - 10 minutes per side to crisp the skin and back into the smoker @ 275F until the internal temperature reached 165F. Rest for 20 minutes or so and OH MY!

Happy eating folks! Brian