Partly due to a desire to answer some long-held questions, partly in reponse to a recent topic, I undertook an investigation of breadmaking while camping this weekend past.
I dont have any photos as the camera's battery went flat :S But the pumpkin bread was soooo great and tasted wonderful. it even had pumpkin flavour and was quite yellow.
Ingredients.
2/3 of a butternut pumpkin/squash chopped. seeded, peeled, boiled, drained and mashed.
500 grams of bread flour. (I used 1/3 cup of gluten glour which was approx 50g and made up the excess of weight with 100g spelt flour, 200g wheat wholemeal flour, 100g of white flour and made the rest up with rye approx 50g maybe a bit more.)
1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast.
After 7 long days, Thing 1 and Thing 2 are looking and acting like living, breathing starters. Thing 1, the indoor starter almost tripled itself today, and Thing 2, the outdoor starter doubled.
As I expected, they are behaving differently, but I actually expected Thing 2 to be more energetic than Thing 1. I guess I expected the outdoor microflora to be more lively than the ones in the house.
I'm going to keep them at 100% hydration for a few more days and then switch them to 50%. I want to see if I can expand them both enough to bake with them this weekend.
Hokey , When you want to branch out to other recipes, you might like to try Sourdough Pancakes, a recipe from my daughter, Nancy, when she was in college at Santa Cruz. These are very nice. I also have a sourdough waffle recipe. Enjoy!
Basic Batter
1 cup starter, 1 cup warm water, 1 1/4 -1 1/2 cups flour. Put in large glass or pottery bowl and cover. Put in warm spot.
Night before prepare basic batter. Next morning, add 1 egg, 2 Tbl. oil, 1/4 cup instant dry or evaporated milk. Beat thoroughly.
Loaves and puppies have this in common, that more is invariably better, so long as you find good homes for them all. An attribute that doesn't hold for everything- mice and snakes are best in sedate groupings of no more than two or three, for example, and I suspect that even bunnies have their tipping point. (Nah, prob'ly not...) I had the remarkable good fortune to find myself handing out bread to nearly a dozen people this weekend.
PAIN RUSTIQUE: PAIN RUSTIQUE: Today I made Hamelman's Pain Rustique and I'm very happy with it. It is creamy and delicious. Thanks TTonka and Susan. I made 3 loaves, one for my neighbor, one in a bread tin for my grandaughter (brushed with butter) and one for us. I will make this again for sure. I'm also going to finally buy Hamelman's book so I don't have to struggle to read the recipe from a pdf.I've been learning how to bake breads the past month or so (without much luck with the artisan bread types). BUT, today I decided to try my hand at a Challah. Here is the pictures of the results. Needless to say I am extremely happy with this recipe! Great "crust and crumb" on this one! I LOVE Challah, and this one tops any I've had from the bakeries.
and cut: (excuse the darkness)
I just finished baking the Cinnamon Raisin bread from BBA. It had no oven spring at all. The only changes I made to the recipe...oops, formula, were to omit the walnuts and use whole wheat flour for 25% of the flour.
Well after reading some posts on here comparing different books recipes on a given bread, I gave one a test.
I have been using BBA's recipe for Poolish Ciabatta, with wonderful results in outward appearance. The crumb was not as open as I hoped though.
