Mama JJ's Sourdough Bread

Tweaking my methods

2009-06-17T06:38:00.000-07:00

I haven’t written about sourdough bread in for forever, I know. It’s not that I’m not making bread, because I am. It’s just that I’ve said pretty much all I want to say about it. I’m fairly stable in my bread-baking routines, and stability is boring when it comes to writing.

My bread-baking routine is as follows. About once a month I get my starter out of the fridge and feed it for a day. The next day I bake two loaves, and I double the amount of starter so that the following day I have enough starter to bake six loaves. Depending on our need, freezing space, and my schedule, I may bake another six loaves on day three, or I may make bagels or some other specialty bread. Then the starter goes back into the fridge and I forget about it for several weeks.

Despite the lack of creativity, I do tweak my methods once in a while. I’ve read about all different kinds of sourdoughs and all different baking methods, and what I’ve learned has led me to suspect that sourdough bread is very forgiving and that rigorous schedules needn’t be followed to the letter in order to make good bread. So this last time I baked, I decided to shake my system up a bit and try something new. I mixed up a batch of country white bread (with some whole wheat thrown in), but instead of proofing it in the fridge overnight, I let it rest in the fridge for only a couple hours before pulling it out and allowing it to proof at room temperature for another couple hours before baking. It turned out lovely—sourdough bread in one day.

I’m not going to be updating this blog much anymore (that probably goes without saying), choosing instead to pour all my energies into the main blog, but I’m leaving this up as a resource. Which is all it really is anyway.

Happy baking!

Burnished

2009-04-04T10:50:00.000-07:00

Burnished. This was the word that popped into my mind when I made these bagels. If someone could’ve seen inside my head, they would’ve thought me certifiably psycho: They are soooo burnished! Shiny and burnished...glossily burnished. Sleekly and sexily burnished. Buuurnished.

These, hands down, are the best bagels I have ever made.

I have another recipe for bagels of the commercial yeast variety, and even though I like them a lot, invariably some of the bagel bottoms end up dense and gummy, like noodles. But these, well. I had not a single—not a single!—flop.

We tore into them while they were still warm. At first I was disappointed because the texture was more bread-like then chewy bagel-like. But after the bagels cooled to room temperature and sat for several hours, they transformed into delicious burnished chewy-nesses. And by day two they were even chewier.

This is one of the faster sourdough recipes. Just throw all the ingredients in the mixer (the recipe calls for a lot of starter, which is always a plus in my book because then I can get away with making just one recipe for the day and don’t have to feel like I need to make a variety of different breads just so I can use up all the starter), knead it for eight minutes, shape the bagels (it’s actually a fun activity and not a chore at all), put them on two trays, cover them well, and transfer them in the refrigerator to proof till the next day when it’s time to boil and bake them. After a brief dip in a pot of boiling water and fifteen minutes in a hot oven, they are done.

I will be making these beauts every time I do a round of sourdough baking. They are an essential bread, one I’ve resolved to have on hand at all times.

Bagels
Adapted from Nancy Silverton’s Breads from the La Brea Bakery

12 ounces (1 ½ cups) cool water
2 teaspoons yeast
13 ½ ounces (1 ½ cups) white starter
2 pounds (6 ½ cups) high-gluten flour or white bread flour
6 tablespoons wheat gluten (if not using high-gluten flour)
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon salt
2 tablespoons barley malt syrup
6 tablespoons milk powder

Day One:
Put all the ingredients in your standing mixer and mix on low speed for one to two minutes. Turn the mixer up to medium speed and mix for another 8 minutes, or until a thermometer reads 75 degrees when plunged into the dough. Let the dough rest for ten minutes.

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and sprinkle them with cornmeal or semolina flour.

Divide the dough into 18 four-ounce pieces. Roll each lump of dough into a 6-8 inch rope, then loop it around so that the ends overlap by about 1-2 inches. With the fat overlapping part of the bagel in the palm of your hand and the skinny part of the bagel over the back of your hand, press your hand down on the counter and roll back and forth, pressing the bagel ends together. (It’s much easier than it sounds.) Repeat with all the lumps of dough.

Place the shaped bagels on the prepared baking sheets, leaving an inch or two between each bagel.

Slip the sheets of bagels into a large bag, tie it shut, and put them in the refrigerator to proof for 12-24 hours.

Day Two:
Remove the bagels from the refrigerator, uncover them, and let them proof at room temperature for about 20 minutes.

Put about four inches of water in your widest (not deepest) kettle and bring it to a boil. (You may want to add something to the water to enhance the bagels, but it isn’t necessary. Brown sugar, baking soda, or salt are the most common additions, I think.) At the same time, preheat your oven (and baking stone, if using) to 450 degrees.

When the water is rapidly boiling, gently drop in three or four bagels. Boil for 20 seconds on each side, flipping them over with a slotted spoon.

Carefully remove the bagels, one at a time, from the water and place them, smooth side up, on the preheated baking stone (that you generously dusted with cornmeal after heating). Once your baking stone is filled, bake the bagels for 15-20 minutes.

Wait to boil the remaining bagels until the first batch is out of the oven since it is important to get the bagels out of the boiling water and into the oven as quickly as possible—you don’t want the boiled bagels to sit around at room temperature for too long.

They keep well at room temperature for two or three days. If freezing, cool completely before bagging.

Note: I'm submitting this post to Yeast Spottings.

Drunk on chocolate

2009-03-13T11:50:00.000-07:00

Like I twittered, I’ve been craving chocolate, so today I decided to make Silverton’s Warm Sourdough Chocolate Cake. I have no idea why I waited so long.

Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? News this good is not to be dilly-dallied with.

It’s a crazy simple recipe, really. All you need is fourteen ounces of bittersweet chocolate, the more expensive and high-end the better since the chocolate is the main ingredient. However, I didn’t follow directions and instead (it was all I had) used the bars of Hershey’s dark that my girlfriend picked up for me at a discount grocery—99 cents for a half-pound bar—and it still turned out intoxicating. Besides the chocolate, you’ll need three-and-a-half eggs, three tablespoons sugar, a quarter-cup of cream and a quarter-cup of starter.

That’s it.

Well, what are you waiting for? Snap to it!

Warm Sourdough Chocolate Cakes
Adapted from Nancy Silverton’s Breads from the La Brea Bakery

While supremely elegant, these cakes have no frills, and you may, if so inspired, wish to play around. I kept thinking a little booze might be nice, maybe in the whipped cream I spooned on top, or maybe in the batter itself. Or, if you’re not spirit-inclined, you could drizzle over some caramel sauce, or maybe artsily sprinkle about some red-raspberries.

These cakes are supposed to be baked in molds set on oven-safe dessert plates—then, after removing them from the oven, you simply slip off the molds (Silverton says tuna cans with both ends cut out of them will work fine), plate the hot dessert plate on a larger dessert plate and serve. I’m sure it would all be very elegant, but I used ungreased ramekins instead and they turned out just fine. I used four two-ounce ramekins and five four-ounce ramekins because that was all I had, but I think it would be better to use more of the smaller-sized dishes—these are some hefty-rich cakes and you only need a small amount to get your kicks.

The fantastic thing about this dessert is that it can be made ahead, maybe even a day or two, and stored in the fridge in the molds all ready to go into the oven. So you can have your fancy company over and towards the end of the meal you pop the cakes into the hot oven and start the coffee to percolating and by the time you’ve finished up your dinner, the molten cakes are coming out of the oven. Just dollop or dip the whipped or frozen cream, and there you have it.

I do not know how these cakes keep. You are supposed to eat them warm, but well, not everyone has enough people on hand to eat up all these little cakes as they come out of the oven. I had one (my second) at room temperature and it was lovely. I’m going to try refrigerating most of them and freezing a couple, just to experiment. Thawed and flash-baked, I bet they’ll be as good as new.

14 ounces bittersweet chocolate
1 whole egg
2 eggs yolks
3 egg whites
3 tablespoons sugar, divided (I used vanilla sugar)
1/4 cup cream
1/4 cup white starter (make sure there are no flour lumps)

Break the chocolate into pieces and microwave till melted, stirring every thirty seconds or so. Set aside, but do not let it get cold.

Whip the cream and put it in the fridge.

Whip the egg whites with one tablespoon of the sugar and set aside.

Using a mixer, beat the whole egg, the two egg yolks, and the two tablespoons sugar for about five minutes, until very thick and creamy.

Add half of the chocolate to the egg and sugar mixture, along with the starter and whipped cream. Stir gently, but well. Fold in the egg whites and then add the remaining chocolate.

Fill ungreased ramekins three-fourths full, set them on a baking tray, and bake in a 500 degree oven for five-six minutes. Only the edges will be softly set; the middles will still be quite jiggly and wet.

Serve warm, with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Ps. For a fun bread blog (lots of sourdough), visit Yeast Spottings. I submitted this post to that site, so hopefully I'll be showing up there sometime in the near future.

Also, I'm starting a list of bread links in the sidebar. If you have a favorite bread blog, please send me the link so I can check it out. Thanks!

Update, April 4, 2009
I was right---these freeze beautifully. I just thawed one at room temperature and then heated it in the microwave for a few seconds, topped it with some homemade vanilla ice cream and some sour cherry sauce. I'm swooning.

Good holes

2009-03-02T07:41:00.000-08:00

Slashing away at my mound of dough, readying it to shape into loaves, I was delighted to see the dough riddled with holes, proof that the natural yeast was hard at work.

All whole wheat

2009-02-27T11:14:00.000-08:00

I attempted to make bread using just my freshly ground whole wheat. Actually, it wasn’t one hundred percent whole wheat because I did have to use some of my white starter. But I only used six ounces of the starter, to which I added three ounces of whole wheat and three ounces of water the night prior to making the bread.

The resulting bread tasted like, well, like wheat. It was earthy and dark and kind of strong tasting, almost like molasses. It was heavy, too, though it did rise, it didn't get very high. Mr. Handsome and I don’t care for it, and while the kids will eat it when I serve it to them, they don’t usually ask for seconds.

I will not be making this bread again, but now I’m left to wonder about those people who say they make their bread with only freshly ground wheat. Does it actually taste good? Am I doing something wrong?

Air Puffs

2009-02-09T17:34:00.000-08:00

On Saturday I made Silverton’s recipe for sourdough donuts.

She describes them as “light” and “broichelike”, and while I don’t know much about broiche, I do know that these donuts were, by far, the lightest donuts I’ve ever sank (sunk? chomped?) my teeth into. They collapsed and melted away, almost as fast as cotton candy.

Not only were the donuts the airiest pastries ever, the recipe was like non-other. It called for ten tablespoons of butter, five teaspoons of cinnamon, two whole nutmegs, grated,

thirteen egg yolks,

as well as buttermilk, milk powder, starter, etc. (The recipe also called for dried sour cherries, but I opted not to use them.)

The dough was so moist it was more like a thick paste then a bread dough, and I ended up adding more flour then the recipe called for, but even so, the donuts fried super-fast—they were in and out of the oil in a blink of an eye.

We fried them up outside on the deck, kids crawling all over us, eating them up as fast as we could fry them. We hardly had any leftovers. (We did give a small bag of them to some friends, but most were eaten at the scene of the frying.)

Even thought these donuts were delectable, I still prefer my standard potato-dough donuts. Nonetheless! I would like to find an easy sourdough donut recipe, preferably one with a less-excessive ingredient list.

I guess that means more experimentation lies ahead of me. I’m not complaining.

Understanding the concepts

2009-02-07T16:55:00.000-08:00

I have written hardly anything about sourdough lately. I’m afraid you’ll take that to mean that I haven’t been doing any baking, which is not the case at all. Not only have I been baking, I have also been experimenting with my own recipes, reading up on the chemistry behind the sourdough, dreaming about having a masonry oven, and teaching others (albeit just one other, but that number should change to two after this coming week) how to make the bread.

After three years of off-and-on baking, I’m starting to get into a more moderate baking rhythm. I get my starter out of the fridge, feed it for a couple days (if it’s been in the fridge for just a couple weeks, it only takes one day to wake up), increase the amount of starter, do a several days of big bakings, and then put the starter back in the fridge for another couple weeks.

I’ve experimented with enough recipes that I know what my family likes best, so I’m more efficient, no longer spending large amounts of time trying out new recipes (though I think it’s because of the wide-range of recipes that I’ve made that I’m finally becoming more comfortable with sourdoughs).

I have done away with the whole wheat starter, not because we don’t like it, but because I think there should be a way to make a nutty whole wheat bread using the white starter, a bread that rises better and tastes a little less sour. Which leads me to my first experiment. One morning, just a couple weeks back, I increased the amount of starter that I reserve each morning (I normally keep back a half-cup which provides enough, after a full day of feedings, to make a batch of Country White, with a little starter left over) to one full cup, putting it in a gallon jar to give it adequate room to grow.

I gave the starter it’s accustomed third and final feeding right around suppertime, but then at bedtime I shook things up a bit. I poured out some of the starter into a quart jar and fed it again, a fourth time, but this time with whole grains and freshly ground flour. My hope was that the whole grains would absorb enough of the water that they would soften to provide a chewy, nutty texture to the final product. Likewise, I wanted the ground flour to have some time to ferment and sour, giving the bread a deeper, more complex flavor.

The following morning I scraped the whole-grain starter into the mixing bowl, and proceeded with the recipe for Country White. I substitute some whole grain flours to the bread in place of the white flour, but because I didn’t want to make too many changes at one time, the modifications were minimal.

The resulting bread is a whole wheat version of the Country White, just what I was hoping for, proving that I can indeed make a good whole wheat without a whole wheat starter and by following the standard recipe. Granted, the changes that I made were moderate ones, and I suspect that if I were to make substantial changes I would need to make other changes as well, such as upping the water or decreasing the salt, but for minor changes this method worked well, the key being to add some of the whole grains to the starter the night prior to mixing up the dough.

I have written down my changes into a recipe format, just for the sake of clarity and good record-keeping. Bear in mind that there is nothing magical about the grains I used. It’s the method that is important (though flexible) as well as the proportions of flour-water-starter. Once you understand those concepts, the sky is the limit.

Rye-Whole Wheat Sourdough

Day One
Several hours after the starter’s final daily feeding (in other words, right before you go to bed), measure out 6 ounces of white starter and put it in a quart jar. Add 2 ounces rye flour, 1 ounce rye flakes, and 3 ounces water. Stir well, cover lightly, and go to bed (both you and the baby).

Day Two
Mix up the dough as per the instructions for Country White. The proportions are as follows:

the jar of rye starter (12 ounces)
2 pounds and 2 ounces of flour: 1 ounce rye flour, 5 ounces whole wheat flour, and 1 pound 12 ounces white bread flour
1/4 cup wheat bran
1 pound 2 ounces water
4 ½ teaspoon sea salt

Day Three
Bake the bread.

Another use for

2009-01-27T12:10:00.000-08:00

Okay, here’s another Way-To-Use-Sourdough recipe: Baked French Toast. Of course it wouldn’t have to be made with sourdough bread (it would be really good with a cinnamon-raisin bread), but since I make it with sourdough, it belongs here, on this blog.

Baked French Toast is kind of like a bread pudding, but much better—more eggy and breadier (I’m afraid that didn’t make much sense since bread pudding is made of eggs and breads, but, oh well), and the top gets crunchy and crusty from the cinnamon-sugar that you sprinkle over it before baking. It’s another one of my favorite breakfast recipes because it requires a soaking period, making it perfect for assembling the night before and then popping it into the oven after you blearily scuffle your way downstairs in the morning. And it’s fancy enough for company. The leftovers are delicious, too, only requiring a brief re-heating in the microwave.

I have found that it is important not to use more bread than the one pound that the recipe calls for. I have often made the mistake of trying to add extra bread to the recipe, thinking more is better, but in this case it is not. A surplus of bread makes the dish too dry, so don’t do it.

The original recipe called for an entire eight ounces of cream cheese, but it works fine with just four to six ounces of the cheese. Also, if you want to gussy it up, you can experiment by adding different fruits: fresh cranberries (first simmered in a sugar-water solution) with some orange zest are tasty, as are frozen blueberries (this last time I made three-quarters of the pan with blueberries and one-quarter without, for Yo-Yo). I suspect it would also be good with chopped apples (first sauteed in some butter and sugar), raspberries, dried dates, cherries, or raisins. And you could sprinkle some toasted pecans or walnuts over the top...

Baked French Toast
Adapted from The Grand Matriarch

1 pound stale bread, cubed
4 ounces cream cheese, in small cubes
12 eggs, beaten
1 ½ cups milk
1/3 cup pure maple syrup
3 teaspoons sugar
½ teaspoons cinnamon

Mix the sugar and cinnamon and set aside.

Grease a 9 x 13 pan and place half of the cubed bread on the bottom. Sprinkle half of the cubed cream cheese over the bread. (If the cream cheese is too mushy to chop, set it in the freezer for about fifteen minutes to harden prior to cutting.) Repeat.

In a separate bowl whisk together the eggs, milk, and maple syrup. Pour over the bread. Tightly cover the casserole and put it in the fridge to soak for 8-24 hours (and I think you could get away with letting it there even longer).

Right before baking, sprinkle the reserved cinnamon sugar over the casserole. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes, until puffy, golden brown, and set (poke it in the middle with a knife to make sure it is no longer runny).

Serve with maple syrup.

A Darn Good Sandwich

2009-01-09T15:53:00.000-08:00

Just because I’m not baking sourdoughs now doesn’t mean that sourdough isn’t taking a prominent role in our diet. On the contrary, we’re feasting on the bread, steadily plowing through the loaves that I had squirreled away in our freezer.

Just today, for example, I made grilled cheese sandwiches with the Country White.

Country White elevates a simple grilled cheese sandwich to a whole new level. Especially when you add pesto and oven-roasted tomatoes.

I’m racking my brain to see if there is any other sandwich that I favor above this one—Reuben? Sweet Lebanon Bologna? Egg, Bacon, and Cheese? Hot Meatball Sub?—and the answer is, dare I say it?, not a one. This grilled cheese takes the cake. Period.

I suppose I should write about this recipe over at Mama’s Minutia, but since the sourdough bread plays such a crucial role in this recipe, or rather, this food configuration, I decided to add it to the Sourdough Blog. I have some other Ways-To-Use-Sourdough recipes that I’ll eventually post here, too. But for starters (ha! no pun intended!), here’s a darn good basic one.

Grilled Cheese Sandwich with Pesto and Oven-Roasted Tomatoes

Country White Bread (or any other non-sweet sourdough bread, though the Country White is my favorite)
A good melting cheese such as mozzarella
Butter
Pesto
Oven-roasted tomatoes

Take two slices of bread. Spread one slice with about a tablespoon of pesto. Cover the pesto with slices of cheese. Put the second piece of bread on top. Generously butter the outer pieces of the bread. Fry the sandwich on a hot cast-iron skillet, about two or three minutes for each side, or until the bread is golden brown and the cheese is oozing out the sides. Open the hot sandwich and stuff with the tomatoes. Close the sandwich back up again, take a bite, and moan with pleasure.

Black Boots and My Long-Necked Deficit

2008-12-20T11:31:00.000-08:00

I told you I would tell you about this bread, Chocolate-Sour Cherry, but I just haven’t gotten around to it till now.

The truth is, I don’t like this recipe, and I feel guilty for not liking it. I mean, who in their right mind doesn’t like chocolate-sour cherry bread? I imagine that long-legged, long-necked, black-boot-wearing French women eat it all the time. Probably even for breakfast.

Maybe I need to put on my black boots and try it again. It might taste different then.

But I can’t fix the long-neck deficit.

The other possibility is that I’m not making it right. But this last time I followed the recipe exactly. I used my own dried cherries and good chocolate. But still, I just don’t like it. It’s too dry. And I don’t like the sourdough-bread-turned-chocolate flavor.

I guess I’m just not sophisticated enough.

However, I know there are others out there who have longer necks than me, so I’ll take the time to type up the recipe for you. You’re welcome.

Chocolate-Sour Cherry Bread
Adapted from Breads from the La Brea Bakery by Nancy Silverton

½ cup (4 ounces) cool water
2 teaspoons yeast
2/3 cup (6 ounces) white starter
5 ½ tablespoons (1 ounce) dark cocoa powder, unsweetened
1/4 cup (2 ounces) sugar
2 cups, plus 2 tablespoons, (10 ½ ounces) bread flour
4 tablespoons (2 ounces) butter, cut into smaller pieces
1 ½ teaspoons salt
2/3 cup (3 ounces) dried sour cherries, unsweetened
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, cut into ½-inch chunks

Put the first six ingredients (down through the flour) in the mixing bowl and mix for three minutes. While the mixer is still running, add the butter, a tablespoon at a time. After the butter has been incorporated, add the salt and mix for about nine more minutes. Add the cherries and chocolate and mix for just a couple minutes, until it is well blended.

Transfer the dough to a clean, oiled bowl, cover with a shower cap let sit at room temperature for a couple hours. At that point, cut the dough into the desired sizes and shape into loaves (I made four mini-loaves, but you can also make two regular bread loaves, though they will be small). Cover with plastic and refrigerate overnight.

The following morning, remove the loaves of bread from the refrigerator, take off the plastic wrap, and cover the loaves with a cloth. When the dough has reached a temperature of 64 degrees, dock the tops (I think I forgot to dock mine), and bake at 400 degrees for 30-40 minutes.

Christmas Gifts

2008-12-19T02:40:00.000-08:00

I like to give little gifts to our neighbors at Christmas time. Yes, it’s cliche. Yes, everybody else does it. Yes, I know I’m not original. But that’s okay. The Christmas season provides a window of opportunity to show people that I care for them. I like that—it’s a good thing, in my mind. Besides, I’m already in the over-do-it-in-the-kitchen mode, so just putting myself out a little further is not that much of a stretch.

We don’t know many of our neighbors, at least not well. Many of them are elderly (I rely on the fact that they are probably hard of hearing—helps me to feel less guilty about all the screaming and hollering that emits from our living quarters), and the rest are mostly adults who have jobs and stay indoors when they are home. We kind of rule our neck of the woods.

I know our neighbors are kind folk, deserving of a little plate of Christmas goodies. I know this, merely because they have not turned us in, yet. I’m hedging my bets that one little plate of orange-cranberry sweet rolls or some chocolate-covered toffee to buy us one more year of goodwill.

I’m such a pragmatic person.

This year I’m giving little loaves of Country-White sourdough bread. I have a bunch of the little loaves stashed in our freezer, destined for our neighbors’ gullets. (And then I went above and beyond my intended giving-plan and sent some little loaves with Mr. Handsome when he ran into town the other afternoon—those loaves went to our pastors and church elders and church secretary. No, I am not buying my way into heaven! I can’t believe you just thought that! Come on, people, it’s Christmas. Can’t a body just want to give a gift without their motives being scrutinized? Geez.)

The way the plastic wrap stands up on top of the loaves, it makes them look like they just stuck their doughy fingers in a light socket and got electrocuted. It makes me feel rather quaint, giving electrocuted baked goods away as Christmas gifts.

Rolls

2008-12-17T11:16:00.000-08:00

I know I’m done with baking bread, for now, but that doesn’t mean I’m done talking about bread. I don’t ever really run out of things to say, bread or otherwise—that’s just not something I struggle with, a lack of words.

I have been getting brave with my bread baking. I used to make just the boules, but now I’ve broken with tradition and made not only loaves, but also rolls.

Silverton does have recipes for rolls in her book, of course, but I didn’t even take a peek at those when I started making my own. I just shaped the rolls, set them in a greased pan, did the overnight refrigerator proofing, and then baked them the following day. What makes them so fun, is docking them. I did get this idea from Silverton, I’ll admit, but that doesn’t stop me from feeling a sense of ownership in the delightful process.

To dock rolls, take a pair of kitchen scissors and snip the tops of the rolls, first one way,

and then the other,

to make a nice little X.

You could say the rolls look kind of spiked, scared almost, but I think they look cute. And snip-snipping their tops is kitchen work at its most thrilling. You gotta give it a try.

Frenzied Finale

2008-12-15T11:58:00.000-08:00

I finished up the last of the bread baking on Friday.

I’m sick of baking bread, as in I-can-hardly-stand-to-eat-bread-anymore sick. My refrigerator seemed to always be loaded down with the proofing bread (and now it’s my freezer that’s loaded down), and I was putting so much of my energy into feeding the starters and mixing and shaping and baking when I already had the extra work of Christmas baking and menu planning. I was spending way too much time in the kitchen, so it’s with an enormous sigh of relief that I put the baby away.

I will not bake more sourdough till 2009. Merry Christmas!

Baking Frenzy

2008-12-08T10:30:00.000-08:00

I haven’t written here for awhile. You may think that I have been doling out water and flour three times every day, day in and day out for the past month, but I haven’t. I put the babies to sleep again, and after a break that lasted several weeks, I woke them up, just last Wednesday.

After the first day of feedings, both starters looked pretty flat and the whole wheat starter smelled dead (in other words, like flour and water, no tang to it), but the next morning they were alive and well. I breathed a sigh of relief, and on the third day I started baking.

I’m trying to bake every day, in preparation for our Christmas company and travels. It makes my mornings a little crazy what with all the measuring and pouring and all the doughy containers to wash.

I have a nice little system though.

I first get out the four loaves of bread that have been in the refrigerator overnight. I take off their shower caps and cover them with a towel.

Then I mix up a batch of the country white. While that dough is mixing,

and then resting,

I measure out the ingredients for the whole wheat.

After the country white is done, I simply transfer the dough to an oiled bowl, cover it with a shower cap, and dump the pre-measured ingredients for the whole wheat into the mixing bowl—I do not wash the mixing bowl between breads.

Somewhere in there I get my continuing starters measured into clean jars, fed, and set back in their corner on the counter.

And the leftover starter dumped into a little bowl, ready to add to the compost and for one of the kids to carry it out to the chickens.

Several hours later it is time to get busy again. I bake the risen loaves.

Then I grease the newly-emptied bread pans, cut and shape the new loaves, put them in the pans, cover them with shower caps, and let them rest at room temperature for an hour before putting them in the refrigerator.

After that, all that remains to be done it to feed the babies at noon and before bed, and to package up the freshly baked bread loaves and carry them down to the freezer.

Like I said, it’s a little crazy, but only for this week, or until I get about 16-20 loaves of bread. Then I’ll stop.

I already did stop with the whole wheat starter. Instead, I’m now doubling my white starter baby so that I can make a double batch of breads based on the white starter, such as the rosemary-olive oil and George’s Seeded Sour.

Ps. I made some changes to the whole wheat recipe, which I noted here. The dough was just too wet for me to work with.

George's Seeded Sour

2008-11-22T06:32:00.000-08:00

I loved this bread the last time I made it. The seed combination is brilliant, a perfect combo that mirrors a seeded sourdough bread I used to buy at our farmer’s market that made me go all swoony.

But I made a mistake this time. (I’ve been making a lot of mistakes, but I try not to dwell on them too much because then I get discouraged and am no fun to be with.) I used seeds that had not been stored in the freezer (I do know better) and had been piled listlessly in the corner of my kitchen cabinet for a year, or, oh I’m so embarrassed, more. So the seeds were a little bitter, which kind of ruined the effect.

Moral of the lesson—buy fresh seeds if you are going to make this bread, and then store them in the freezer until you need them again.

George’s Seeded Sour
Adapted from Breads from the La Brea Bakery by Nancy Silverton

2 1/4 cups (1 3/4 pounds) white starter
1/4 cup (2 ounces) milk
2/3 cup (3 ½ ounces) whole wheat flour
½ cup (1 1/3 ounces) dark rye flour
2 tablespoons bread flour
1 ½ cups (10 ounces) cool water
2 ½ tablespoons quinoa
2 ½ tablespoons millet
1/4 cup amaranth
1 tablespoon poppy seeds
5 cups plus 2 tablespoons (1 pound and 5 ½ ounces) bread flour
1 tablespoon sea salt

Start the bread in the late afternoon of Day One:
Make a sponge with the first five ingredients: using a spoon, mix them altogether in a bowl, cover tightly with a shower cap and leave the bowl sit on the counter until it has doubled, about three hours.

Put the water, sponge, grains, poppy seeds, and flour in the mixing bowl and knead for four minutes. Let the dough rest for twenty minutes.

Add the salt and mix for another five minutes. The dough will be sticky. Knead it by hand on the counter for a couple minutes and then put in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a shower cap and chill in the refrigerator for about six hours, or overnight.

Morning of Day Two:
Remove the dough from the refrigerator and take off the shower cap. If the dough has not yet doubled, let it sit at room temperature until it does.

Cut the dough into two pieces and shape into elongated boules, about ten inches in length. Lay them on the counter, smooth side up.

Prepare your proofing tray: Lay a cloth on a cookie sheet, lightly dust it with flour and bunch up the cloth in the middle, creating a little wall to divide the two loaves.

For the seed mixture:
2 tablespoons amaranth
½ cup sesame seeds
3 tablespoons poppy seeds
3 ½ tablespoons anise seeds
3 teaspoons fennel seeds

Mix the seeds together in a small bowl and then pour into a large tray that has sides.

Now’s the fun part. Spritz the tops of the loaves with water, roll them, wet-side down, in the seed mixture and lay them, seed-side down, on the proofing cloth.

Cover them with another cloth and allow to proof for three to four hours.

Heat the oven to 500 degrees. Flip each loaf over, dock them, and slip them, seed-side up, into the oven. Follow the same spritzing and baking procedure that you use when making the Country White.

Don't Cheat When Proofing

2008-11-09T12:06:00.000-08:00

Here is the pumpkin bread that I told you would be coming.

It's not made with pumpkin, but with sweet potato, and enlivened with cumin and toasted pumpkin seeds. The last time I made this recipe it got rave reviews and everyone scarfed it down, but this time it is languishing, half-eaten, on the kitchen counter.

It is all my fault. I decided that the bread didn't really need to take two days to make---I could just rush it through if I cut back on the proofing times just a little. So I did, and while the final product has good flavor, the texture is too dense and heavy. So please learn from my mistake: do not skimp on the proofing times, and you shall be richly rewarded (with scarf-able bread) for your honesty and integrity.

Pumpkin Bread
Adapted from The Breads from the La Brea Bakery

Start the bread in the late afternoon or early evening so that it can ferment in the fridge overnight.

Two medium-sized sweet potatoes, or one big clunker
1 1/3 cups (7 ounces) shelled raw pumpkin seeds
1 ½ cups (12 ounces) cold water
1 cup (8 ounces) white starter
5 tablespoons raw wheat germ
1 teaspoon ground cumin
3 1/4 cups (1 pound and 2 ounces) white bread flour
1 1/4 cups (7 ounces) whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon sea salt

Bake the potatoes in the oven,

and then peel them and scoop out 1 1/4 cups (10 ounces) of the pulp and set it aside.

Put the pumpkin seeds on a cookie sheet and toast them in a 350 degree oven for 10-15 minutes until they are golden brown. It’s important to get them all nice and toasty-brown because then they will taste lighter and crunchier once they are baked into the bread. Set them aside.

Mix together the water, starter, wheat germ, cumin, and flours, and knead well. Let the dough rest for twenty minutes, add the salt, and knead for another 5 minutes. Add the pumpkin seeds and knead for another two minutes, or until the seeds are well-incorporated. Place the dough in a greased bowl, cover with a shower cap and let it ferment in the fridge for about 10 hours.

In the morning, cut the dough into two equal pieces and shape into loaves. You can make the bread into standard loaves, or boules, depending on your preference. I think they would also make fine dinner rolls.

If you make elongated boules, lay them smooth-side down on a flour-dusted cloth that has been placed on a cookie sheet. Pull the cloth up around the edges of the loaves to provide a separation between them and to help them keep their shape.

Once your bread loaves/boules/rolls are shaped, cover the loaves with shower caps (or if you’re using cookie sheets, slip the pan into a garbage, or big zip-lock, bag) and put them in the fridge to proof for another 6-10 hours.

Take the bread out of the fridge (now you are on late afternoon/evening of day two) and remove the plastic and cover the loaves with a cloth. Allow the dough to proof on the counter for one to two hours (till the dough reaches about 60 degrees). Dock the bread and bake in a hot oven, about 400 or 450 degrees, for about 30-40 minutes (less if you made rolls).

Unauthentic Practicality

2008-11-06T10:22:00.000-08:00

I finally made it through a entire day without neglecting my starter and so the following morning I celebrated by making a recipe of country white and a recipe of whole wheat. I baked the country white in loaf pans, and docked them with two diagonal slashes. The bread turned out chewy and soft and tender, but totally different from the oatmeal bread type of chewy, soft, and tender.

I also baked the whole wheat bread in loaf plans, docked with just one long slash. The bread, just the one loaf, kind of fell in on itself and I’m not sure why. But I do know that it’s important to dock the bread, even when baking in loaf pans, because I forgot to do it once and there was a giant air bubble between the top crust and the main body of the bread which was a pain because the top crust would always burn when toasted.

I’m finding that its tons easier to make this sourdough bread in loaf pans. I just plop the loafs of bread in the pans, cover the pans with shower caps, and line them up side-by-side in the fridge. The following morning I pull them out, replace the caps with a cloth, and let them rise on the counter for several hours. Then I dock them and slip them into the hot oven.

Is that boring? Unauthentic?

Probably, but it’s just us eating the bread. Who am I trying to impress, anyway?

But still, I feel like I’m cheating.

Maybe I need to give myself a lecture: You’re being practical, JJ. Practical.

I Forgot Them, Twice!

2008-11-03T06:43:00.000-08:00

I don’t know if I’ll ever get around to making bread. I can’t seem to get my act together long enough to feed the starters three times a day. I don’t remember ever having this problem before. Even when I was hemorrhaging and ended up in the hospital, even when an explosive 14 year old foster daughter landed in our lap, even when I traveled, my starters never got neglected.

But on Saturday I went shopping all day long and forgot to put “do the starters” on Mr. Handsome's list and then I forgot to call home at lunchtime to tell him to feel the babies, so they only got two feedings that day.

And then yesterday I got sick (a stomach bug) and forgot to remind Mr. Handsome to give the babies their bedtime feeding because I fell asleep at 7:30 and slept all night long (and that was after I slept from 3-6 pm, and that was after taking periodic naps all day long ... I was doing a lot of sleeping). It’s not like I can blame Mr. Handsome. Not at all, really. See, he had been swamped with work: taking all the kids to church, hosting my grandparents who were visiting from PA, and then my balding bro and his wife came too, and making dinner (potato soup and apple pie) for everyone. If the starter babies were going to compete with all that chaos, then they needed to be the type of baby that screams bloody murder, which they aren’t.

The good news is that now I know what the starters looks like when they’ve only had two feedings. Just for the record, the white starter gets a thin layer of frothy liquid on top, and the whole wheat starter smells a little flat. They’re probably just fine, and I could’ve baked with them, except that I didn’t have enough starter to use in bread and still have some leftover to keep it going. So, we’re waiting till tomorrow.

Waking Them Up

2008-10-31T10:28:00.000-07:00

My babies are waking up! I got them out of the fridge yesterday morning; the poor things looked chilled to the bone, watery, and weak. So pathetic and sad! I almost felt guilty.

They clearly needed to get the blood moving again. To stir some life back into them. To eat something! So, I did what any good mom does when her kids look cold and weepy---I fed them (just water and flour, nothing fancy) and almost immediately, it seemed, they were back to their boisterous, tangy-scented selves. It made my heart swell with pride, it did! Silverton says to wait for three days before baking after chilling the starter, but I bet I could’ve baked with them today.

Anyway, all that to say: We’re back in business, folks, and I have a couple new recipes up my sleeve. Well, at least one ... but I think it’s a good one. It involves pumpkin seeds and a sweet potato. Just in time for Thanksgiving, too.

A Cold Nap

2008-10-17T04:23:00.000-07:00

My babies are sleeping. Shh.

Because I did a lot of baking over the past couple weeks and now have quite the stash of bread in the freezer, I decided to put the babies to sleep for a week or two. There’s no need to be using up all that flour if I’m not needing it. So I filled two pint jars three-quarters of the way full, one with the whole wheat starter and the other with the white. I labeled and dated the jars and popped them in the fridge.

It’s nice to have a break from the rigorous feeding schedule, but I know I’ll be glad to see my babies again when I wake them back up. Frozen sourdough bread is plenty good, but there is nothing like a hot loaf of crusty bread, straight from the oven. Mmm. Absence does make the heart grow fonder.

Taking Risks

2008-10-13T12:07:00.001-07:00

I am not one to play around with recipes much. I like to follow the directions exactly as is. I'm just not a risk-taker, I guess. Does that mean I'm boring? Maybe, but I'm also consistent.

The one thing that keeps me from appearing too boring is that I try new things. And that's interesting, right? I figure if I try out lots and lots of different recipes no one will ever catch on to the fact that I'm not thinking for myself, creating original recipes. (Or have you all figured that out already and are tittering to each other behind your fingers? Please don't answer that question.)

Anyway, all that boring blather just to say that I tried something different with the whole wheat sourdough bread. I'm proud to say that my little experiment was successful.

Tinkering with Silverton's golden recipes gave me a little adrenaline boost and made me all happy inside. As The Pioneer Woman would say, it made my skirt fly up.

What I did different was this (it's really not much so you must promise not to laugh at me): I shaped the bread into loaves instead of boules, proofed them in heavily-greased bread pans (first out on the counter, then overnight in the fridge, and back out on the counter the next morning), and then baked them in a 400 degree oven for about 35 minutes---no flipping them around, only a tiny dock-slash down the backbone, no spritzing the oven with water.

The result was a normal enough looking loaf of bread, one that did not sink and go flat (I decided that was a problem), with a very moist and chewy crumb and without a hard, tough-crunchy crust, something that has understandably been bothering my children.

Blow Out

2008-10-09T10:56:00.000-07:00

This is what happens if you don’t dock the bread properly, or if it hasn’t been proofed all the way.

In this case, both factors were present. The bread was under-proofed (right around 58 degrees instead of 62) so I should have made a deeper cut when I docked it.

But I didn’t, and you can see how the bread contorted itself as it struggled to find room to expand.

So now it sports a Novocaine-induced chipmunk face---a loaf of bread that has had dental work. How about that ... a genuinely toothsome bread.

Basic Whole Wheat Bread

2008-10-06T08:33:00.000-07:00

The whole wheat boule is a little tangier and nuttier, more of a sour bread, but it’s still not what I would call a strong-flavored bread. And it’s neither too dark nor too dense. Of course, you can make it as dark as you like by adding a higher ratio of whole wheat flour to white flour or by including other whole grains. But I like it as is—for a basic whole wheat bread, this is about perfect.

The dough is a little wetter than the Country White dough, and it doesn’t rise quite as high which results in a flatter-looking boule. I may be doing something wrong, so if I figure out the problem (if this is even considered a problem) I’ll let you know.

Whole Wheat Boule
Adapted from Breads from the La Brea Bakery by Nancy Silverton

2 cups (1 pound) cool water
1 3/4 cups (1 pound and 1 ounce) whole wheat starter
1 tablespoon barley malt syrup
5 2/3 cups (1 pound and 11 ounces) unbleached bread flour
1 ½ cups (6 ounces) whole wheat flour
1/4 cup wheat bran
1 tablespoon sea salt

Mix together the water, starter, syrup, flours, and bran on low speed for 4 minutes. Let rest for 20 minutes. Add the salt and mix for another 6 minutes. Transfer the dough to a well-oiled bowl, cover well, and let proof for about three hours.

Proof and bake the bread as is outlined in the recipe for the Country White bread. (Dock the bread with a backwards C, followed by a slash that is perpendicular to it and then two slanted slashes on either side of the main perpendicular cut. Confusing, huh? Look at the photo, or else cut it up in whatever way you find pleasing.)

Update, December 8, 2008
The dough is too wet, even when shaping into loaves. When docking, it deflates and does not rise again. Therefore, I have started adding more whole wheat to the dough. The recipe calls for six ounces, but I put in somewhere between 10 and 12 ounces, plus another 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

Give A Hearty Welcome To...

2008-10-02T03:30:00.000-07:00

...the newest member of our family: Our whole wheat starter baby!

I conceived this baby two days ago, Tuesday morning, by putting one cup of white starter in a clean half-gallon jar, adding 1/4 cup whole wheat flour and ½ cup water, and voila! I had me a new baby!

I feed it three times a day, like the other baby. I think you’re supposed to wait for three full days of feedings before using the starter in bread, but I’m going to cheat and start a batch of bread today, after only two full days.

The feeding schedule for a whole wheat starter is as follows:

In the morning put one cup of starter (only use the white starter once, just to get it going—from then on reserve one cup of the whole wheat starter every morning) in a clean jar, add 1/4 cup whole wheat flour and ½ cup water. Give the slurry a good stir, lightly secure the lid, and set the jar out of the way on the kitchen counter or up on the fridge.

At noon, or four to six hours later, add ½ cup whole wheat flour and 3/4 cup water.

In the evening, or four to six hours later, add one cup of whole wheat flour and 1 ½ cups water.

This is a much more runny starter than the white starter, the water and flour separates, and it just doesn’t look like it’s doing much. But it makes excellent bread, as I will soon show you!

Note: If you make the Farmer Boy Pancakes with whole wheat starter, you will need to add some extra flour, either white or whole wheat, or another one of your choosing, to thicken up the batter. Or you can combine both the white and whole wheat starters in the recipe—that is, if you have both babies going simultaneously.

The Wettest Dough Yet

2008-10-01T02:43:00.000-07:00

This one-day bread is not difficult to make, though the first time around you will fret over it because it will be the wettest dough that you have ever yet made, I bet. Learning the ropes of handling puddle-wet dough as opposed to an elastic-ball of dough that you can knead the crap out of is certainly challenging, but also fun. Eventually it becomes simple, and then it starts feeling like old hat. (To be honest, I’m not there yet, so that last sentence is purely hopeful speculation.)

The point of having such a wet dough is that you get lots of nice, big holes. This bread should be served alongside something that you can dip it into, such as soup or Peposo. It’s also very good split in half and toasted—kind of like an English muffin.

The bread is best fresh because after the first 24-36 hours it tends to harden quite a bit. I think the leftover pieces will make a splendid bread pudding.

Silverton uses this dough as a basis for a number of other recipes, such as Rustic Olive-Herb Bread, Focaccia, and Italian Bread Sticks, so there is lots of room for playing around.

Rustic Bread
Adapted and roughly summarized from Breads From The La Brea Bakery by Nancy Silverton

2 2/3 cups (1 pound and 6 ounces) water, divided
2 cups plus 2 tablespoons (1 pound and 3 ounces) white starter
1 teaspoon yeast
8 3/4 cups (2 pounds and 3 ounces) bread flour
4 teaspoons sea salt
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons olive oil
semolina flour, or cornmeal, for dusting

Put 2 1/3 cups water, the starter, yeast, and flour in your hand-dandy Kitchen Aid mixing bowl and mix for six minutes (or do it by hand and get really big arm muscles). Cover the dough with a cloth and let rest for 20 minutes. Add the salt and mix for 2 more minutes.

In a small bowl mix the remaining 1/3 cup water, the milk, and the olive oil. Keeping the mixer on low speed, slowly add the wet ingredients. No matter how slowly you add the liquids, there will still be some sloshing, so have a cloth ready to loosely drape over the mixer to act as a make-shift shield. Once the liquids are blended in, mix for another 4 minutes. Cover the bowl with a shower cap or plastic wrap and let it rest for 2-3 hours, or until it has doubled in size.

Heavily sprinkle your work surface with flour and dump out the risen dough. Sprinkle the puddle of dough with more flour and cover with a cloth and leave it alone for 20 minutes.

Get out two cookie sheets and cover them with large pieces of parchment paper. Sprinkle the papers with cornmeal and then bread flour.

Cut the dough in half (it will feel like you are cutting Elmer’s glue),

and somehow, with much rigorous maneuvering of your shoulders, transfer one of the dough puddles to a cookie sheet, roughly spreading out the dough as you lay it down so that it is about 8 x 10 inches and about 1 ½ inches thick (mine was more spread out and thinner—gotta work on that).

Repeat the process with Dough Puddle Number Two. Dimple the dough-puddles with your fingers, and sprinkle the tops of the dough with bread flour and cornmeal. Cover with a cloth and let them proof for 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees, re-dimple the dough, and when the oven is ready, slide Puddle Number One, along with it’s piece of parchment paper, onto the baking stone.

Make sure to spritz the oven with water: once before putting in the loaf of bread, once right after putting the loaf in, 2 ½ minutes later, and then 2 ½ minutes later. Reduce the oven temperature to 450 degrees and keep the oven shut for the next 15 minutes. Remove the parchment paper and allow to bake for another 5-10 minutes. Crank the oven back up and repeat with the next loaf, er, puddle.

Over-Proofing

2008-09-26T02:57:00.000-07:00

I over-proofed this batch of Country White. I wanted to bring it up to the requisite 62 degrees a little faster than the three hours that it normally takes, so I turned on the oven for several minutes, which was a couple minutes too long because I then had to wait while the oven cooled down again so I could finally put the bowls of bread in to proof. After only a couple hours the boules checked in at 67 degrees. I could tell the bread was overproofed just by touching it—the dough was shaky and trembly, not firmly taut like it should have been. I quickly turned on the oven to pre-heat, tsk-tsking at my carelessness.

There is only one way to remedy this kind of problem, the overproofing problem, and that is to dock the bread with a more shallow cut than normal. I did that, and the bread turned out fine, but you can see in these pictures that the bread looks sallow, washed out, and sick. It doesn’t have the strong, robust, vibrant look of a properly proofed loaf.

But the loaves will still taste pretty good, so it's not the end of the world.

Docking

2008-09-24T10:21:00.001-07:00

I don’t know about you, but my mother taught me to never bump a loaf of bread when it had risen. She showed me how to ever so gently slide the loaf into the oven and ever so gently close the oven door. Any slamming around and the loaf would collapse in upon itself.

But not so with sourdough. (Ha---that rhymes!) Once the dough is all big and poofy, then you get to do some major playing around, flipping it over, pushing it from the board to the oven tile, and even cutting, or docking, the boule. This turns bread-baking from a domesticated, genteel activity into a therapy session for the rebellious and defiant child. Not that I harbor any resentment toward my mother and all the many many instructions she gave me. No, no, certainly not. Though slashing that soft, risen dough does sooth my soul....

Of course you must still be gentle—no poking or pinching, though that is a tempting proposition since the dough feels just like a baby’s butt, or a baby’s marshmallow cheeks (facial ones).

First, dump the loaf out upside down on a bread board (or in my case, a cutting board).

Second, dock it. There are all different cuts, depending on which type of bread you are making. You can create your own cuts, of course—the only goal is to be consistent so that a certain cut always indicates a certain type of bread. I use a razor to dock my bread because the cutting device needs to be, um, razor sharp. Make the cut quickly—a ½ inch deep cut at a 45 degree angle.

Docking the bread is not simply for decoration—it allows the bread to expand properly. If you didn’t dock it, the boule would explode out in one way or another. By cutting the boule, you are telling it where to expand so it does it in an attractive fashion.

I feel powerful and bossy when I slash the dough and then shove it into the oven. The dough collapses quite a bit (maybe I'm too bossy?), but within the first five minutes of being in the hot oven, it rises back to it’s beautiful shape, and then even grows some more.

The Second Baking

2008-09-23T11:18:00.000-07:00

Rosemary-Olive Oil Bread
Adapted and very briefly summarized from Breads from the La Brea Bakery by Nancy Silverton.

The marking for this kind of bread is a tic-tac-toe pattern.

The ingredients are the same for the Country White, except that after you have added the salt and kneaded it well, you then add one tablespoon of chopped fresh rosemary and a quarter cup of olive oil and knead it again, for about another five minutes.

My Baby's Bread

2008-09-19T09:15:00.000-07:00

I made bread with the bread baby! It worked! Yippee, yee-haw, and whoo-hoo!

The kids and I tore into one of the loaves while it was still hot from the oven. We spread the warm, crusty pieces with lots of butter and tore off huge mouthfuls.

Since it was getting close to noon, I just cut up apples and sliced off some chunks of cheese and called it lunch. Supper was sandwiches. I toasted thick slices of the bread and spread one slice with pesto and one slice with mayonnaise and then put oven-roasted tomatoes and slices of Provolone cheese in between the two.

Like I said, we’re going to be eating a lot of bread from now on.

Country White
Adapted from Breads from the La Brea Bakery by Nancy Silverton, and briefly summarized.

I do not normally measure my ingredients in pounds and ounces, but I discovered how easy it is to put my Kitchen Aid mixing bowl on the scale, zero it, add the starter, zero it, and so forth. There’s hardly any mess, and it’s very exact.

Note the nice hole structure---it looks just like the holes in the bubbly starter. Nifty, huh?

1 1/3 cups (12 ounces) white starter
7 cups (2 pounds and 2 ounces) white bread flour
2 1/4 cups (1 pound and 2 ounces) tepid water
½ cup raw wheat germ
4 ½ teaspoons sea salt
a little oil

Day One
In the morning I mixed up my ingredients (the process includes kneading it in the mixer for 5 minutes, letting it rest for 20, and then adding the salt and kneading it for another 5 minutes, and so on---little details that I don't want to bore you with).

I put the dough in a lightly greased plastic bowl and let it rise for several hours. Then I dumped it out on a lightly floured counter and cut it into two pieces.

I lightly kneaded it to get all the air bubbles out,

and there were a lot---do you see them?

I left it to rest on the counter for 20 minutes. Then I shaped the dough into two boules.

I lined two glass bowls with cheese cloths (you’re supposed to use bread baskets, but I don’t have any), sprinkled some flour over the cloths and set the boules in, smooth side down.

I covered them with a shower cap/plastic wrap and let them proof on the counter for one hour before slipping them into the fridge.

Day Two
I took the dough out of the fridge first thing in the morning (actually, Mr. Handsome did that for me because The Baby Nickel woke up at some obscene hour, like 4:30, and so as Mr. Handsome left the room to go fetch the non-sleeping twit, I croaked to him to please take the bread out of the fridge, which he kindly did) and took off the shower cap/plastic wrap,

and let them sit on the counter till they were about 62 degrees.

(not quite ready)

I put my big pizza stone on the bottom rack of the oven and preheated the oven to 450 degrees. I gently turned one of the loaves out on to my floured cutting board,

docked the top with a knife (it’s a backwards C cut for the Country White) (a razor blade works way better than a knife, but this being the first time baking sourdough in a year or two I wasn’t fully prepared), and slipped the loaf off the board and onto the hot pizza stone in the oven. (There are no pictures of that process because I had to work quickly.)

I spritzed the oven thoroughly with water right before putting the loaf in the oven, right after I put it in, 2 ½ minutes later, and again 2 ½ minutes later. Then I set the timer for 20 minutes and did not open the oven during that time. When the timer went off, I rotated the loaf 180 degrees and continued baking it for another 10 minutes. Then it was done and I baked the next loaf the same way.

Sustainability

2008-09-19T03:28:00.001-07:00

Some of you have probably figured out that there is a problem with starter. A quantity problem, as in too much. I’m feeding this baby three times a day, each time doubling the amount of starter that is already in the jar. So, for example, if I have one cup of starter, I add ½ cup of water and ½ cup of flour. Then I have two cups of starter, so at lunch time I add one cup of water and one cup of flour. Then I have four cups of starter. See? There’s potential for some serious issues.

I only have three ways to use up all that starter: bake with it, give it away, throw it out. If I used all that starter in baking I would never leave the kitchen, and so far no one has come knocking at my door, empty jar in hand. That means that I mostly just throw it out. It’s careless and wasteful, I know, but I do have to take care of My Sanity.

One thing I have done to help cut down on the waste is to make only the minimum amount of starter that I need in order to keep it my baby healthy; I'm now only reserving ½ cup of starter every morning. That means I can keep the baby in a half-gallon jar now, instead of a gallon jar, and I have just enough for one (maybe two, depending) recipe of bread each day, if I were to want to bake each day. Which I don’t. But, in any case, I’m not tossing such copious amounts of flour and water onto the compost pile.

Here is my baby in it’s half-gallon jar. It’s ready for it’s lunch. Notice how bubbly and alive it is.

Here it is after I’ve added water and flour. The bubbles have been smoothed out, but by suppertime it will be just as bubbly as it was before lunch.

And so it goes.

Couldn't Resist

2008-09-16T07:48:00.000-07:00

The starter was so lusciously bubbly this morning that I couldn’t resist using it to make pancakes. We call these pancakes “Farmer Boy Pancakes” because I imagine they are a bit similar to the cakes that Almanzo’s mother made for their Sunday breakfast feasts. (At some point in the book they talk about how she kept her starter going, but I can’t find the spot now. Maybe it’s in one of Laura’s other books.)

When Almanzo trudged into the kitchen next morning with two brimming milk-pails, Mother was making stacked pancakes because this was Sunday.

The big blue platter on the stove's hearth was full of plump sausage cakes; Eliza Jane was cutting apple pies and Alice was dishing up the oatmeal, as usual. But the little blue platter stood hot on the back of the stove, and ten stacks of pancakes rose in tall towers on it.

Ten pancakes cooked on the smoking griddle, and as fast as they were done Mother added another cake to each stack and buttered it lavishly and covered it with maple sugar. Butter and sugar melted together and soaked the fluffy pancakes and dripped all down their crisp edges.

That was stacked pancakes. Almanzo liked them better then any other kind of pancakes.

Mother kept on frying them till the others had eaten their oatmeal. She could never make too many stacked pancakes. They all ate pile after pile of them, and Almanzo was still eating when Mother pushed back her chair and said,

“Mercy on us! eight o’clock! I must fly!”

We don’t eat quite that many, though we did eat a lot this morning. I made a double batch of the following recipe, and Mr. Handsome wasn’t here and I only ate one-and-a-half pancakes and there were only three leftover. I may not have to feed my kids any lunch.

Once I bought maple sugar to better imitate Almanzo’s mother’s pancakes—I was trying to get the melted butter and sugar effect—and they were good, but too expensive and too much work. I prefer to make them big and serve them with just butter and syrup.

Farmer Boy Pancakes
Adapted from Breads from the La Brea Bakery by Nancy Silverton

2 cups white starter
2 tablespoons maple syrup
3 tablespoons canola oil
2 eggs, beaten
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder

Combine the wet ingredients and then add the dry. Heat up your griddle, grease it with some butter and proceed to fry up a big ol’ stack of pancakes.

Serve with maple syrup and butter.

Note: For how to make whole wheat Farmer Boy Pancakes, click here.

A Healthy Baby (Day 18)

2008-09-16T03:35:00.000-07:00

My baby lives! I am so, so happy. This has been such an emotional roller coaster: one minute I’m all excited and the next minute I’m in the depths of despair (yes, I do have a flair for the dramatic). For awhile there I was kind of resigned to the fact that I just might be a failure,but I don’t need to worry about that anymore. My baby is a bubbling, seething mass, and all is right with the world.

Now that I’m feeling more confident in my role as parent to a bread baby, it’s time to analyze the two babies and their past 18 days of life. It’s been a long process, and if you are following this, I feel that I own you a little synopsis.

Back in the day when I was a parental failure and my baby was dying, the way that I could tell my child was suffering was that the liquid would rise to the top of the mixture in a slimy wet layer. This time around, however, the liquid is absorbed into the mixture. The top gets all frothy and bubbly which is good and also very different from having puddles of liquid sitting on top.

Another clue that it is now doing well is that there are air bubbles all the way through the mixture. Yesterday they were tiny bubbles because the baby was still young, but this morning when I came downstairs I could immediately see that the bubbles were getting larger and more numerous.

Also, I can see the mark on the jar that indicates that the baby rose up and then fell back. In other words, as it ate the flour and water it became more active and bubbly, and now it’s shrinking back—the classic sign of hunger. It’s soon time for it’s breakfast.

Bread baby bubbles are beautiful and beneficial. (There’s a tongue twister for you.) They signify eating: chewing, swallowing, and burping. It’s what babies do, though I hope if you have a human baby it is not filled with as many bubbles as my bread baby. That would be rather unfortunate.

I will wait another day or two to bake (if I can stand it), just to make sure the baby is really strong.

Now I have a dilemma: What to do with Baby Number Two? I certainly don't need another baby anymore. Chucking it seems cruel, but I think it just may be fated for the garbage.

Part Two: Making the Starter, Again (chapters 7- 8)

2008-09-09T10:14:00.000-07:00

Chapter 7: All Over Again
Day 1, and Day 11: September 9, 2008
This is getting really confusing. Part One is done. Part Two has begun. But I'm fiddling with the starter from Part One (that's the starter for Day 11) but I'm starting it back at the beginning, so it's really also on Day 1, but with a little head start (maybe). I can't keep this straight. Plus, I'm trying to organize this into the most readable fashion, but I'm not computer savvy I get really confused. I type these posts with a very scribbled-upon yellow notepad perched on my knee. Not to mention I have a slow internet connection. And it's rainy outside.

Anyway, I'm not going to document the growth of the new starter like I did the first time around in Part One. I will be doing most everything the same, and I'll let you know if I do anything different. I will take pictures occasionally, just so you can see how things are coming along.

Just for simplicity's sake, we'll refer to this brand new baby as Baby Number Two. The old baby that died, upon which I am attempting to miraculously revive, we will refer to as Baby Number One. The regeneration plan for Baby Number One is completely up in the air. I am not referring to any books or manuals---I'm just winging it. We will follow this baby more closely (for now) than the other.

Part Three will detail the makings of the breads. If we ever get there.

Is all this clear? Are you still with me? Hello? Hello?

Day 2, and Day 12: September 10, 2008
Twenty-four plus hours after beginning the new baby and it’s looking pretty good. The flour is bubbling up and the liquid is sinking down. I’m hopeful (or else a fool).

I wonder why I couldn’t make bread with it now. Why do I have to wait ten days to start regular feedings? Is it for the sour flavor? And what about just mixing wine with flour and water? Would that have the same effect?

The old baby, on the other hand, still looks rather dead. I’m ignoring it.

Day 3 and Day 13, September 11, 2008

This new baby is going berserk. The bag of grapes is pushing up to the top, and the jar of water has been ousted from its King Of The Mountain position and has sunk to the bottom of the ar. It smells good, too.

The other baby is still there. The bag has inflated, and there is a bit of liquid sitting on top. That’s all.

Day 4 and Day 14, September 12, 2008

My Girlfriend Shannon visited me this morning. She took one look at my baby sitting on the counter and declared, “That is one ugly baby.” She’s right; it is hideous.

I fed both babies today. Baby Number Two got the requisite cup of water and cup of flour and a nice swishing. I pushed the sack of grapes to the bottom and pressed the pint jar of water down on top. Silverton says that you can use the starter to do some baking at this point, though she claims the flavor would be compromised. I’m pondering taking some starter out and getting it going on a regular feeding for several days. I’m dreading letting it sit for five whole days—it seems like that’s when it always goes kaput.

I gave Baby Number One a half cup each of water and flour, as well as a swishing. Baby Number One smells surprisingly nice. Maybe...

I’m not holding up to well emotionally. All this waiting and worrying is taking a toll on me. I just want to get past this part and on to baking bread. I hate this part. What makes me mad is that I’ve done it all before, so I know I can do it. It should be a simple matter—follow the instructions and make a starter, right? But this process is just not concrete enough. It’s eluding me, and I don’t like to be eluded.

Chapter 8: Playing Around
Day 5 and Day 15, September 13, 2008
Last night I did some on-line reading about sourdough starters. Most of the starters that used only water, flour, and grapes have a very similar start-up process as Silverton’s. The variations were minor: one said to start regular feedings on Day Eight, another said that you could start baking right away once you start regular feedings (Silverton says to wait for five more days to get the starter well-established and strong), another said to only feed the baby twice a day, and yet another explained how to make the starter with just water and flour. All of the directions made the whole process seem simple, so either the authors are all very devious, or I’m just dense. In any case, it was good for me to see the possible variations in the process. I began to see that it just might not be an all or nothing proposition.

As my mother says, “Hope springs eternal.”

So this morning I took Baby Number One and removed its placenta, I mean, it’s bag of grapes. I put one cup of the rosy pink starter in a gallon jar and fed it some flour and water (same portions as before). I’m going to continue to feed this baby for several days to see if anything new develops. It had a nice tangy odor this morning, so just maybe...

Baby Number Two is busy fermenting. The bag of grapes is hugely swollen.

I think Hope is hiding out in there.

Day 7 and Day 17, September 15, 2008
I don’t want to jinx myself or Baby Number One. I’m scared to say it, but I need to, I think. I feel the words and emotions burbling around down in the bottom of my throat. I’m afraid I might blow... MY BABY IS ALIVE!!!

Goodness! I did blow!

Now, let’s not talk about it anymore. I’m doing some psychological tiptoeing. In other words, I’m feeling fearful, nervous, superstitious and excited.

Note: I am trashing this odd way of posting that I’ve developed. I was intending it to read like a story, but it is getting too cumbersome for me to scroll all over the place and do all that cutting and pasting. So from now on, I’ll just be posting like this is a normal blog. Parts One and Two will still be as there in the archives, just the way they are in their tediously long narrative format.

Part One: Making the Starter (chapters 1-6)

2008-09-01T02:53:00.000-07:00

Introduction: This site will document the process of making sourdough breads, from the creating and growing of the starter, to the mixing, shaping, and baking of the breads. Everything I learned comes from Nancy Silverton’s Breads From The La Brea Bakery.

I'm not attempting to teach you exactly how to make sourdough bread; rather, I'm simply showing you how I do it. If you get inspired and decided to attempt this (time-consuming) undertaking, I highly recommend that you purchase Silverton's book. I can guarantee that you will read it over and over again as you muddle through the ins and outs and ups and downs of making sourdough breads.

Chapter One: The Very Beginning (Grapes, Flour, and Water)
Day 1: Saturday, August 30, 2008
On the north side of our house we have a grape vine.

This is no ordinary grapevine, as you can see. It does not stretch in a neat row, carefully growing along an arbor. No, our's is a Tree Grapevine. It completely covers that poor (dead?) tree that happened to grow up beside it. Mr. Handsome has to use an extension ladder to pick the grapes.

When we first moved here three years ago there were no grapes and practically no leaves on the vine at all. In fact, when I was making dill pickles and needed a grape leaf to put in the jar (why do we do that?), I had to scrounge around at friends' houses in search of some grape leaves.

Mr. Handsome and I contemplated cutting the whole thing down but we never got around to it.

Which was lucky for us, because the next year the arbor, I mean, the tree, was loaded with grapes. It has been this way ever since. Once we see that we're going to have grapes, Mr. Handsome sometimes gets out there and sprays a couple times, but more than likely he'll forget and we'll have totally organic grapes. I think this was one of the no-spray years; I did not wash the grapes before using them in my starter.

Most of the grapes are not quite ripe, so I picked out the darkest ones. I needed a pound. (You can use store-bought grapes, but make sure you wash them first.)

Then I took a piece of cheesecloth and folded it so that it was layered four times---I didn't want to risk having seeds and skins in the final starter.

I gathered up the four corners,

and tied them together with string.

Next, I poured four cups of water into a clean gallon jar. Silverton uses a thermometer to measure the temperature of everything---flour, water, etc. The water was supposed to be at 78 degrees, so I checked just to make sure mine wasn't too far off from that. It was about 85 degrees. I figured that was good enough.

I added 3 3/4 cups of unbleached white bread flour (I use this type of flour the whole way through),

and stirred it up with my most gigantic rubber spatula, though it's also fine to just use your hand, not worrying about all the flour lumps.

I pushed the bag of grapes into the jar and kneaded and squeezed it until the grapes were nice and mushy and a lot of juice had dribbled out.

I swirled the grape bag through the flour mixture, and then pushed it down to the bottom.

I screwed the lid on tight, and there it was, my new baby. Isn't it darling?

It's supposed to be kept at room temperature, around 75 degrees, and since my kitchen tends to get hotter than that, I set it on the shelf in the bathroom, next to the diapers. Figured that was an appropriate place to set my bread baby.

Don't you think it would be nice if we could shelve all our babies like that? Just set them on a shelf above the washing machine, next to the diapers and light bulbs and cleaning rags and there they would sit? Tidily? Quietly?

Chapter 2: Fermenting
Day 2: Sunday, August 31, 2008
At first I didn't know if this baby was going to take off or not. It looked a little ill this afternoon. There was about an inch or so of pale yellow-red liquid floating on top and the flour paste was just sitting there on the bottom, only a few tiny air bubbles in it (sorry, no picture). But then, a couple hours later I went to the bathroom and as I was sitting there (yes, on the toilet---it's directly across from the shelf upon which the baby sits, so I can monitor it's progress every time I have to go pee) I looked up and yelled, "It came alive!" The kids came running, eyes quickly scanning the bathroom, searching for the critter that caused me to yell. When I pointed to the jar of starter, they looked at it, then looked back at me, disappointed and a little bit wary, and left the room.

But really, it was amazing. The flour was seething with bubbles. The liquid had sunk down to the bottom third of the jar where the bag of grapes sat, and the flour mixture had risen up a couple inches. Beautiful. Before I went to bed, I took a picture for you.

Day 3: Monday, September 1, 2008
I’m not supposed to do anything with the starter until Day 4, but I got my baby down off the shelf to snap a couple pictures of it so you can see what it’s doing. (I’m as bad as any new parent, showing off the little one.)

See how the sack of grapes and the liquid are sandwiched between the layers of flour paste? Note how the top layer has more bubbles than the bottom layer.

I opened the lid to take a sniff... ah, what a delicious smell, sweet, tangy, grape-y, yeasty, like warm wine. It makes me get all tingly and jiggly inside. The excitement is building!

Chapter 3: Baby's Hungry
Day 4: September 2, 2008

My baby is getting hungry. Do you know how I know, besides the fact that I’ve had a lot of experience with babies (and besides the fact that Silverton told me so)? See the mark on the jar that shows how high up the mixture had risen yesterday? But now it’s shriveling up, falling in on itself with hunger, and there aren’t as many bubbles. It’s growing weak, starving.

Looking down in the jar you can see how the bag of grapes has risen up to the top. It is still inflated, which is a good thing.

Ew, it doesn’t smell so fine today—a bit on the rotten side, but it’s supposed to, says Silverton, so I’m not worried.

There is a remedy for this hunger issue: one cup of water and one cup of flour.

I dumped them in and mixed it all up with my hands, swishing the bag of grapes around and pressing out some of the juice. The mixture was very runny. I pushed the bag to the bottom, but it promptly rose to the top again, so I left it there.

Ooh, my hands smell sweetly of grapes and yeast. If only that could be my permanent scent. You know how grandmothers supposedly smell of cinnamon and nutmeg and brown sugar? That’s a very nice scent and all, but I’ll take the Grapes-and-Yeast Scent, please.

I set my baby back on it’s shelf. It looks like nothing special now, just a flour-water mixture. (Kind of how I feel at the end of a long, long day—like Nothin’ Special.) It’s probably worn out by that big dinner, and then all the exercise immediately afterwards, poor thing. Anybody will tell you that’s not a wise idea, exercising after eating. I’m sure it will feel better after a nap, so we’ll let it rest in peace now. Shh.

I’ll let you know when it wakes up.

Chapter 4: Fermenting (or rotting?) and Thoughts on Mortality
Day 5, September 3, 2008

Nothing much is happening with my baby. It’s just sitting there, scrunched between the cardboard box of lightbulbs and the bucket of clothespins. Maybe it’s bored, like my other kids. Maybe it needs a little entertainment, you know, some stories read, some music played, etc, like Toad’s seeds (in one of the Frog and Toad books) needed in order to grow...

About this stage, Days 5-9, Silverton doesn’t say very much. There’s not much to do, and there’s not much happening (I noticed that already). She says that the mixture separates (quite notably so) and mold may develop—in that case, we’ll have to skim it off. So that will be my main job, scrutinizing my baby for signs of mold. Yum-yum.

Day 6, September 4, 2008

The starter looks really boring. It’s not doing anything. But I got it down anyway to peek inside, and low and behold—could that be mold in there? See it? That dark blue-blackish stuff lacing the edge of the liquid?

I got a spoon and tried to scrape it off, but then I wasn’t so sure it was mold after all. Maybe it was just bits of the purple-y grape bits that leaked out of the cheesecloth, and the white slime was just water-flour paste that was smeared to the top of the bag.

I scooped a bit of the stuff out anyway, just in case.

Then I added another half cup each of flour and water because Silverton said that if the starter grows mold it could be a little bit out of balance. And flour and water is definitely a lot cheaper than Prozac.

I’m feeling a bit fretful. I don’t know how this child of mine will turn out. Will it make it to adulthood, or in this case, motherhood? Maybe this whole thing will flop and I’ll be a failed parent. Everyone will glance at me and then quickly avert their eyes, embarrassed to have been caught staring. No one will want to associate with me. I will be known as the Parent of the Failed Bread Baby.

Now I'm starting to feel unbalanced.

Day 7: September 5, 2008
One thing I'm concerned about is that Silverton said that the starter should separate, "forming a yellowish liquid top layer", and my starter's liquid layer is definitely not yellow. It is clearly a purple-pink. Just a minute ago I went in to check on it (and no, that is not a hidden code for saying I had to go pee) and I could see little white specks shooting up to the top and down to the bottom. Maybe that's it's version of twiddling it's thumbs?

I'm won't be posting here till Sunday. I'm going away, and I'm not taking this baby with me. It doesn't need me right now, and it actually depresses me to look at it. I'm fully aware of its mortality. I feel like I'm on the brink, preparing myself for it to go either way. I won't be suprised if it dies, but I will be surprised if it makes it. I'm not normally a pessimist, so this dismal thinking is a little unusual for me. I must be stressed.

Just so you don't think I'm a total nut (a partial nut is okay), these are normal feelings to have when raising a bread baby. And for those of you who aren't parents, these are similar to the feelings that most parents have (not the dying part, I hope, but the "making it" part) when raising the type of baby that has actual limbs and digits. We wonder if our totally goofy, weird, onory, bratty (not mine, of course) children will actually turn into sensible, caring, reasonable, non-bratty adults. Some days it really does seem like a gamble.

I felt this way making a starter baby the first time around. My first one didn't make it, so I know my fears are well-founded.

Cross your fingers and send pleasant thoughts to the jar sitting on the shelf in my downstairs bathroom. Come on, baby! Come on, come on, come on!

Chapter 5: Scheduled Feedings
Day 10, September 8, 2008
Time to start regular feedings.

First, I squeezed the bag of grapes and removed it from the jar. I think it looks rather like a placenta.

I gave the starter a good stir,

and poured off one cup and put it in a clean gallon jar.

The starter was really runny. I reserved a pint of the starter, called “The Mother”, to store in the fridge in case something happened to my other starter. I dumped out all the rest of the starter.

For the first feeding I added a heaping half cup of flour

and a half cup of tepid water.

I mixed it up with my hand,

partially screwed the lid on, and set it aside.

Second feeding, four hours later: 1 1/4 cups flour and 1 cup of water.

Third feeding, six hours later: 2 ½ cups flour and 1 cups water.

The mixture is not looking so hot and it smells like flour paste, not tangy and yeasty like it’s supposed to. We’ll see how it’s doing in the morning, but I don’t think it will make it.

Chapter 6: Endings (ie. I screwed up) and New Beginnings
Day 11, September 9, 2008
I checked my baby first thing this morning. Bad news. It was just sitting there, only a few bubbles in it. There was a little liquid sitting on top and it looked slimy. The mixture still smelled like flour paste, the scent of failure. There were no marks on the jar showing that it had risen and fallen during the night, the indicator that it was properly taking it’s food. The baby was off its feed. It was dead.

To put it bluntly, I was pissed. I went out for my run, pounding out my frustration on the gravel road. I came back hot and sweaty, still pissed, but with a plan.

I continued with my baby, pouring off all but one cup of the starter, which I put in a clean jar. I added the half cup each of flour and water (always a little more flour than water). Then I wrapped up a half pound of grapes in a cheesecloth, squeezed the juice into the mixture, dropped the cheesecloth with grapes in, and swished it all around. I have never done this before, but I figured that now I have nothing to lose. I’ll see if I can revive this baby. Back at Day 2, the whole thing was a seething mass, just like it should be, so maybe by tomorrow it will have gotten it’s second wind. I’ll play around with it. Maybe I’ll learn something new.

But just to be safe, I also mixed up a brand new baby. I did everything just like before. The only differences were that I used a thicker cloth for the grapes (it’s still called a cheesecloth, but the holes aren’t so big), and I filled a glass pint jar with water and set it on top of the whole mess in an effort to keep the bag of grapes towards the bottom.

Hang on to your hats, folks. Here we go again!

(And thus ends Part One.)