Experimenting with a recipe- any suggestions?
I have been making Nancy Silverton's country white bread forever in order to get a good feel for sourdough baking techniques and to get all the beginner's mistakes out of the way. Now I'd like to get a little experimental, changing only one or two things at a time to learn how to adjust to different ingredients. I don't want to stray too far from the basic formula:
- starter
- flour
- water
- sea salt
- wheat germ
(I'd give baker's percentages but I haven't figured out how to do that yet).
I was thinking of starting by replacing the half cup of wheat germ with 1/2 cup of coarse corn meal, because I have all this cornmeal left from my anadama bread adventure. Does that sound disgusting?
I was also thinking of replacing the sea salt with a flavored sea salt. Would that impart any real flavor changes?
I'm being cautious in my experimenting because I was laid off (thanks to the recession) so I don't want to make a bunch of inedible mistakes.
I'm baking essentially the same formula over and over and changing bits here and there to see the results. It's a "sourdough" formula in that there's no commercial yeast, however I have yet to succeed in baking something that I would call "sour". Anyway, if I were you, I'd try the corn meal but I'd soak it first, probably overnight, to avoid the cruncy graininess that I'd be afraid of otherwise. Maybe try incorporating it into a sourdough build to see if that does anything vs. soaking it alone. Be willing to change your flour percentage to accomodate the different texture from changing from wheat germ to corn meal. I imagine flavoured salts would impart a flavour, how much depends on how strongly the salt is flavoured. If you like the flavour, then you can't really go wrong putting it in your bread, eh?
:-Paul
Hi, DrPr.
I'm sorry to hear about you being laid off. Bummer! Good luck with your job search.
Re. flavored salts: Salt is such a small percentage of the total dough that I wouldn't expect you to notice much if any difference using flavored salts. I'm no salt expert, but my understanding is these are meant to be sprinkled on cooked foods, not used in cooking.
Then there's the expense.
David
Because salt represents such a small amount of the total percentage of the bread (less than or equal to 2%), I'm not sure the taste of a flavored variety would be very noticeable. Also, because salt flavors are often herb or citrus based, why not just use that herb or some citrus rind in your bread.
--Pamela
I agree with leaving the salt as is, as was suggested above. If you want to experiment with deeper or better flavors, try substituting 10 % of the white flour with rye or whole wheat. I would start with the rye because I like how a little bit improves the over all flavor and doesn't change the handling much. You might need a T or so more of water because whole grain flours absorb more water. Just a little, I think you will like the change.
Let us know what you try.
Eric