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It is science, but no rockets. Unless, of course, you haven't gotten off the ground. Then everyone who has looks like they're flying rockets.

I've been making bread since forever. I actually taught the Egyptians the process ;-)

No, really, I've been either watching my mother or making bread myself on and off for at least 60 years. I've been making sourdough for twenty-ish years. The rewarding and fulfilling part of this is that I get to eat really good bread all the time. In addition to that, all of my friends think I'm the bread king. The accolades are nice but at the end of the day it's my own satisfaction that matters. After all these years I can now create completely new formulas (formulae?) like my latest coconut bread made for a friend, or go sideways with an old formula to try something new. 

So why do I sound so braggadocious? Because this post is my promise to those who are just starting, or restarting, or just struggling for what ever reason, you can do this. Remember, it doesn't require rockets. If you just keep trying, and by that I mean you need to make bread on a regular and consistent schedule, it will come. After years of making yeasted bread successfully I wanted to make that legendary and mystical sourdough stuff. So I did my research, long before this great site appeared, so in some ways it should now be easier, and gave up making a scratch starter when I found a source for a free one that had a good reputation, got said starter, and started making bread. Of COURSE the beginning attempts were horrific. It's a different world working with flour and acids. 

I made my formula, made adjustments, made it again, twice a week for 4 - 6 months before it got good. So there's nothing to boast about concerning my learning speed. If it was edible, I ate it. If it was more than I could eat I gave it away, and that's a key part of this process for me. And if it wasn't edible I chucked it. Eventually I got to the point where even my screwups made good bread. Maybe not great bread but better than that stuff in the stores.

Why is it important to give bread away? Tonight I'm borrowing a free dump-trailer from a friend I give bread to, to haul free soil given to me by a friend I give bread to, to increase the value of my property. I haven't even started to calculate how much value is involved in this little transaction, but it's more than the cost of a few loaves of bread.

Anyway, this last weekend I made my signature sourdough. I almost always make two batches of two loaves. I had prepared two portions of starter and when I began assembling the doughs, I discovered I had too little of white bread flour. So rather than throwing one starter out, I made a half-and-half white/wheat. I know wheat takes more moisture than white so I adjusted the hydration level on the fly from 75% to 79% and followed my standard process. After overnight cold retardation, I let it rise to room temp, portioned and baked.

The picture above is the whole wheat result. I'm not a photographer, the picture was just taken with my phone, but it turned out better than the intended turned out. The example below is the original formula. It's a little under developed but it will eat just fine. I'm not entering it in any contest. 

signatureSourdough.jpg

I think the whole wheat loaves are a little under developed too. Here's that crumb:

halfWWSourdoughCrumb.jpg

Personally, I don't like a crumb that is so open you can't make a sandwich to take to work because everything inside will fall out, but I like it a little more open than this.

I love making bread, or baking in general, and love eating the products of my efforts even more. I also love teaching people how to do it. That's the reason for this post: to encourage you stugglers. If you persist in your efforts, post your results, give your bread away so you can make more, study and learn, eventually it will be easy and even your 'failures' will delight you and your friends. Occasionally you might post some good looking images of what your pain and suffering taught you how to make. It won't take 60 years either.

One other encouragement: it's not rocket science and it's not religion. You don't have to believe everything you read. I almost never throw away starter. I feed mine once a week or two. I can hear the masses inhaling, aghast. Sometimes I go too long and have to resurrect it after three months of inactivity. It takes a whole day. You don't have to make only sourdough. A really superb yeasted bread is satisfying too. When I don't have two days to make SD, I make WW sandwich bread. It takes 4 hours. The only down side to all of this is I can't eat store-bought bread anymore. So if I have time I make SD, if I have less time I make WW. If I have no time, I go without. And that sucks.

A weeks ago, Tom (Toad.de.b) introduced Farina Bona to me, which is basically flour milled from toasted but unpopped popcorn. I love his idea of alt altus so much that I thought I had to try this flavor booster as well.

Warning ahead: popcorn is extremely tough to mill. I clogged my mill several time trying to mill it. It is suggested to use other varieties of corn. I have only used popcorn since it's the only thing I have access to. This was the second time I milled it. I was working with softer grains (i.e. spelt) for the first time that I was able to grind popcorn by mixing it with spelt. However, hard grains like wheat and durum were included in this time’s formula. I had to break all the grains into smaller pieces using a blender first, then mill on the coarse setting then again on medium and lastly on the finest one so that the mill didn’t clog.

15% Toasted Popcorn Sourdough with 30% Durum

Dough flour (all freshly milled):

150g      50%       Whole White wheat flour

90g        30%       Whole durum flour

45g        15%       Whole toasted popcorn flour

15g          5%       Whole spelt flour

For leaven:

5g        1.67%       Starter

20g      6.67%       Bran sifted out from dough flour

20g      6.67%       Water

For dough:

280g     93.3%       Dough flour excluding bran for leaven

100g     33.3%       Water

180g        60%       Whey

45g          15%       Leaven

9g              3%       Vital wheat gluten

5g          1.67%      Salt

___________

302.5g     100%       Whole grain

302.5g     100%       Total hydration

Prepare the toasted popcorn flour by toasting popcorns in a pan over low-medium heat. Do not pop them. Remove them from the pan to cool once they are browned and become aromatic.

Sift out the coarse bran from the dough flour, reserve 20g for leaven. Soak the rest (I got 24 g) in equal amount of whey taken from dough ingredients.

Combine all leaven ingredients and let sit until doubled, around 3 hours.

Roughly combine all dough ingredients except for the salt, leaven and soaked bran, autolyse for 30 minutes. Knead in the reserved ingredients than ferment for 15 minutes. Construct a set of stretch and fold then ferment for 3 hours 45 minutes longer.

Preshape the dough then let it rest for 15 minutes. Shape the dough and put in into a banneton. Retard for 11 hours.

Preheat the oven at 250°C/482°F. Take the dough out of the fridge and let it warm up for 30 minutes at room temperature.

Score and spritz the dough then bake at 250°C/482°F with steam for 15 minutes then without steam for 25 minutes more or until the internal temperature reaches a minimum of 208°F. Let cool for at least 2 hours before slicing.

The trouble of grinding popcorn is worth it in my opinion. The aroma of the resulting bread is out-standing even with the use of all the other whole grains. Popcorn also dyed the crumb into a lovely soft yellow colour which brightens my day.

It sprang pretty well in the oven with nice blistered crust. The crumb is not particularly soft thanks to the addition of durum and popcorn, which tend to weight down the dough. However, it still stays pretty moist and moderately open.

This bread is very sweet, so sweet that it kind of feels of eating popcorn :) I prefer bread with some tanginess so I’ll retard the leaven next time popcorn and durum are both used.

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55% rye 45% spelt pancakes with honey mustard and dill

Last week’s over-hydrated spelt masa harina SD with fresh grapes…

Roasted cauliflower & shrimp linguine in spicy sweet potatoes sauce

I’m not kidding! Those caramelized cauliflower leaves are addictive!

Chinese curried squid…so tasty…

Steamed sticky rice in lotus leaves, Braised pork belly with chestnuts, choy sum in broth and roasted sweet potatoes

Eggplant moong dal (skinned mung bean) curry, rava upma (semolina pilaf) and spiced okra