Another golden boule

Something about using some durum flour keeps me coming back, and I tried to improve upon the flavored boule from my last/first blog entry.

Slow proofing and limited oven spring in a bake or two made it apparent that my starters (San [organic all-purpose flour only] and Fran [lots of rye, some whole wheat, and some white]) were being neglected and stressed too much during the week and not sufficiently perked up before weekend baking. This time, I took just about a heaping tablespoon of each 2.5 days before using and combined with a quarter cup of flour. I fed it every 12 hours for 2.5 days, extracting the excess to make some sourdough pancakes along the way. By baking time, the starter was expanding at a much better pace than during the last few weeks. If my starters were animals, I'd call the SPCA on myself for neglect. The aroma can be quite strong on a Wednesday, for example.

Dough: A bit more than one cup of water combined with about 2.5 cups of flour and sat in the fridge all day. 1 cup durum and 1.5 cups baker's choice flour. A nice long autolyse is great when there's time.

When adding the starter, about a half cup (tons, I know), I also added maybe a couple of tablespoons of nutritional yeast powder, a heaping teaspoon of white truffle salt, several dashes of smoked paprika, a few good shakes of garlic powder, a few grinds of black pepper, and I think that's about it. No olives this time. In between the stretch and folds, a sheet of plastic wrap coated on one side with white truffle oil was used to cover the dough. It's a great way to stink up your kitchen.

This duskily flavored mixture was stretched and folded three times before going to bed in the fridge overnight. The amount of extra handling the dough required to mix in all the ingredients probably contributed to an even crumb.

This bread rose and sprung better than the previous attempt. The increased attention to the starter definitely helped. This had a really earthy, full flavor, and thick slices toasted and buttered were almost a meal on their own. It also made for a unique grilled cheese. I have a similar dough going that just went into the fridge for the night, so it was time to record attempt #2.

Sorry for the inexact measures. My wife says there's a digital scale buried in the garage somewhere. It would be nice to use it a few times to get a feel for what different hydration doughs feel like.

 This baked for 20 minutes in the covered dutch oven preheated to 455 followed by 20 minutes with the temperature turned down to 400, then 375, then 350 over the course of the next 20 minutes after uncovering. I don't like this to turn too brown because it would lose the golden color.