Blog posts

...just kidding, there's no butter sandwich. But, I baked another loaf this morning. I made A LOT of starter for some reason, and went on a long weekend. The levain was put in the fridge and three days later it was a pile of bubbly mush. 

"I'm tired of believing I need to ferment sourdough with a fresh levain.." I thought to myself. So, I decided to bake a loaf of bread with 3 day old, cold levain—without refreshing it one little bit. 

I stuck with a safe 75% hydration recipe of mine and trusted my beast of a starter. 

This is a strange and turbulent time...a viral pandemic upon us, the world in an ongoing struggle to survive and the best and worst of humanity on display every day. There is little comfort to be found anywhere as the debates, misinformation, disuptes and yes, death and suffering as a result of covid-19 fill our days.

So I got a bag of Bob's whole wheat flour for the first time since it was super on sale, and I was surprised how fine grounded it was! Again I've never had the patience sifting bran or do long autolyse these days.

So this is my usual faux autolyse procedure, dough was at around 92-93% hydration and I was surprised how fluffy it turned out at 100% whole grain with add-ins.

I guess this V3.0, or V2.1, or V1.2.  Who's knows, and more importantly who cares?

Plans and results laid out the other day, I thought I could do better.

Changes from last time:

This bake was new territory for me for 3 reasons...

Experimenting with yeast water. A marriage of my passions....wildcrafting, fermenting and ? .direct mix. 80% hydration with wild elderberry fermented water biga. 

6 hour bulk,  4 stretch and folds, 6 hour proof  

I also made focaccia with the same technique. I discovered this method in a book by the brilliant Italian bakers Carlo di Cristo, Ezio Marinato, Cristian Zaghini and Pierluigi Sapiente

"Le Fermentazioni Spontanee nei prodotti da forno"

This was a flavorful 40% rye bread made with left-over cooked polenta which had some cheese of course added to it.

The fresh milled rye flour added tons of flavor and the polenta as always made this a wonderfully moist and tasty bread.  I added some potato flour but if you don't have it just increase the amount of one of the other flours.

The crumb came out pretty open on this one and all in all this made a great grilled bread and also sandwiches as well.

Dropping this here to remind us that baking bread doesnt have to be sophisticated.  This was one of the videos i watched to learn what it takes.  For me its a reminder that even with minimal effort you can bake something that most likely going to be more enjoyable than something you get at the market thats choc full of preservatives.  This youtuber's loaves are not picture-esque but the enthusiasm says it all and he also takes a moment to note that gluten development is a reaction between water and flour and not neccessarily a function of kneading - 

Another back burner bread I'd wanted to get around to.  I've made the Weekend Bakery version a few times, but never in the "true" rustique spirit of things - basically a simple nearly unshaped AP bread.  Dump the BF dough on the counter, square it off nice and neat, and divide into rectangles or squares.  Nothing more.

Today’s bake was 50% whole grain (spelt, rye, & whole wheat) and 85% hydration. I was very pleased with the oven spring - in fact it was so strong it blew out my double score (likely some operator error there too). Considering the high percentage of whole grain I was quite happy with the openness of the crumb, although it’s a bit uneven. Probably a result of my limited shaping skills. This is one of the most delicious loaves ever!