The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

George Takes Over Thanksgiving

--pk's picture
--pk

George Takes Over Thanksgiving

I work weekends. Sat. 0000-1200, Sun. 0000-1200, Mon. 0000-0700. This is an insanely great schedule for most purposes. But, like all schedules, it complicates and contorts things at times. So begins our story for today. Two weeks ago on a Friday at approximately 1300 CST there we sat with 3 hours to kill before needing to go to bed. I decided to break out the flour and make a quick loaf for test purposes. I began with the following.

  • 2c water (115 F)
  • 2 1/4t yeast
  • 2c flour
  • 2t sugar
  • 1T oil

Mixed this until it was the consistancy fo spackle (or Gumbo for those from Alabama). I then covered it with the following and let it set for a half hour:

  • 2c flour
  • 1/ 4c dry milk
  • 2t salt

In the past, this normally turns out a standard loaf of sandwich capable bread, But this time, it was personal. After the initial ferment, I mixed in the dry ingredients that were on top. But the dough was far too wet. I added 3 add'l cups of flour and the dough was still too wet. I could not get the dough to set up or become anything other than a sticky mess no matter what I tried. So bedtime came and I decided to ditch it into the fridge and let it think about what it had done. At this point there was a small ball of dough in the bottom of a large (4qt) rubbermaid container).

Saturday 1200 CST. I returned to examine the offending dough to notice that it had nearly filled the container while in the fridge. I told my partner to keep an eye on it that night, so it would not eat the entire contents of the fridge. We went to bed. About 0200 Sunday, George completely filled the container it was placed in. My partner contiued to drop the container to deflate it and bought another 24h but again it filled the container. As punishment for its crimes, we left the demonic spawn in the fridge until Thursday at 0600.

We removed it from the fridge and divvied it up to make rolls and to preserve part as a culture to test hardiness. Below are images following feeding and at 1 and 2 hours post feeding. The rolls were delicious.

George after feeding George @ 1hour George @ 2 hours

Comments

Trishinomaha's picture
Trishinomaha

Isn't experimenting fun? I used to throw away what I considered dough-bread mistakes - but - what the heck- just as well bake as pitch right?

T.

--pk's picture
--pk

I wait until after I bake and see if it tastes ok. If it is good, all is well. if not away it gooooooes.  Except for the biscuit dough a week or so ago, but that was just frustrating and it felt good to see it launched :)    

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thanks,

--pk