Not drawing as long a titular bow as you might think! These two master craftsmen have much in common.
I've been wanting to try my hand at making Phil's 100% Whole Wheat Desem bread since it sounded so simple but yet so good. I had started preparing the Desem starter a while ago but had to abandon it when I went away for business. I was not thrilled with the way it was turning out anyway so it wasn't a great loss.
We were inspired by Varda’s recent Priests Hat Altamura Style Bread Revisited here: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/28663/altamura-style-bread-revisited
For about two months, I had had my sourdough starter sitting on the kitchen counter covered with a kitchen towel. Last week, when I finally found time to look at it again, it looked like a dry cracker cookie.
I had no idea if I could still restore the starter or not, but I decided to give it a try.
Here are 3 calculation tables for Nancy Silverton's 145% White Starter from her book "Breads from the La Brea Bakery."
I created these for anyone who wants to convert one of Nancy's formulas to baker's percentages. It's no more difficult than any other conversion until you realize her starter is a 145% hydration that's refreshed as 52.21% starter : 28.32% water : 19.47% flour.
Using these tables, you can determine the amount (in grams) of flour and water required when one of her recipes, like the Olive Bread, calls for 12 1/2 ounces of white starter.
For breakfast we had a nice YW Buckwheat Apple Pecan Pancake loose based on sweetbird's bread but using YW as leaven and milk to thin it out to pancake consistency. Very nice!
After last week’s delicious experiment, today I tried another version of Asiago Bread. This time I used my San Francisco Country-er Sourdough (15% whole wheat and 15% dark rye).
