Simple Bread

[glepore]

I do basic sourdough, with about 30% semolina, but the semolina is unnecessary. Roughly chop about a cup of kalamatas and a couple stems of rosemary. Treat it like you would your raisin bread. Don't add salt, the olives have enough.

[rwsaunders]

End result because it didn't happen without slice photos.

[Too Tall]

That's gorgeous R.W. just gorgeous.

[rwsaunders]

Will you have a look at this...I had a client dinner at a French restaurant near the DC convention center this past week and I had to snap a pic of the bread on our way out. The crumb was so light and open on the inside and the crust was snappy.

[mnoble485]

rw

Saw the pictures before reading and thought to myself "Damn, he's outdone himself!" Lucky Client. What else was on the menu? Jut add butter and I would be good.

Mike

[rwsaunders]

rw

Saw the pictures before reading and thought to myself "Damn, he's outdone himself!" Lucky Client. What else was on the menu? Jut add butter and I would be good.

Mike

Moules Marinieres...Sailor-Style Mussles...need I say more?

[rwsaunders]

I owe my Uncle Tom and Aunt Pat a loaf of raisin bread in exchange for 2# of their honey...I need to deliver my debt this afternoon.

[dgaddis]

So I just stumbled across a local 'bake off' competition happening next week. Anyone can enter, business or home baker, and you bake *anything* you want. So I'm gonna give it a go. Gonna take my cranberry and walnut sourdough. Will report back.

Need to get the starter out of the fridge and woken up...

[dgaddis]

Mixed up my dough Monday, and put them in the fridge at 5pm that evening. The next day I pulled them out to check on them, and I was surprised to see they've actually risen in the fridge. I don't think I've had that happen before....at least not enough I noticed it anyhow.

Monday:


Tuesday:

[Octave]

Any change in conditions? As in, it's springtime so around here the air has gotten a lot more humid and warm. Our starter has gone bonkers and we have gone from a 48 refrigerator retard stage to a 24 hour or else it overproofs.

[dgaddis]

Yeah, last time I made this bread was Christmas time, it's a whole lot warmer here now. But we have central heat and air, so I'm not sure how different it really is. The dough proofed at room temp for 4hrs and didn't rise much during that time. It'll be interesting to see how it looks coming out of the oven...hopefully I get lots of spring!

I used some spelt flour this time, which I've never used before. It's only 10% of the flour though.

I've been baking (sporadically) for about a year and half now, and still feel like every bake is guess work, like I can't predict what will happen. Every time I put something in the oven it's like "well, let's see what happens this time!" I am at least getting fairly consistent fairly decent results haha.

[dgaddis]

My dough continued to rise the whole 46.5hrs it was in the fridge. Here's how it looked when I took it out of the fridge to bake it ::



More on the bake off over here :: https://www.velocipedesalon.com/foru...off-52250.html

[rwsaunders]

Letting this "ferment" in the fridge for a few days..nothing special just a 50/50 white/whole wheat country bread.

[Octave]

My dough continued to rise the whole 46.5hrs it was in the fridge. Here's how it looked when I took it out of the fridge to bake it ::

Just to clarify, are you letting it fridge-ferment in the same vessel that you bake it in? For our sourdough I do a 48-72hr cold-ferment, but in a separate bowl. Then I dump it out, letter-fold, place it in a cloth-lined proofing basket for another 1.5hr to re-rise and THEN bake it. A lot of moving around but it's gotten us the best results.

[dgaddis]

Just to clarify, are you letting it fridge-ferment in the same vessel that you bake it in? For our sourdough I do a 48-72hr cold-ferment, but in a separate bowl. Then I dump it out, letter-fold, place it in a cloth-lined proofing basket for another 1.5hr to re-rise and THEN bake it. A lot of moving around but it's gotten us the best results.

When baking in the loaf pans, yeah, I put them in the fridge overnight (or two) in the loaf pan. When doing a boule it spends the night in the fridge in a banneton basket and then gets baked in a well preheated dutch oven.

[dgaddis]

They're doing another of those bake offs here in town, this time it's a holiday theme. It's on Nov 5th....that's closer to Halloween than any other holiday, so I'm gonna try and make an orange interior jack-o-lantern sourdough boule. The goal is the scoring will give it the jack-o-lantern look...not carving stuff out after it bakes. I'm 99% sure the picture in my head is not what will come out of the oven on tomorrow's test bake...but it should still be tasty.

Added some pumpkin puree, 1 tsp turmeric, 1/2 tsp of nutmeg, and 1/2 tsp of cinnamon.

Earlier in the day today.


All tucked in (minus the cover) for an overnight retard in the fridge. Will bake it up tomorrow afternoon.

[dgaddis]

Well, I made a stupid mistake and didn't flip it over seam-side-down to score and bake, so it opened mostly along the seam instead of along the scoring. Other than being ugly it turned out great haha, it has good flavor and the color is great! Another 5mins in the oven wouldn't have hurt either.

Scored


Opened mostly along the top


A face only a baker could love


#NoFilter

[Octave]

Looks beautiful, Dustin! The pre-bake photo has some serious jack-o-lantern vibes. How's the flavor?

[dgaddis]

Looks beautiful, Dustin! The pre-bake photo has some serious jack-o-lantern vibes. How's the flavor?

Flavor was alright, I liked it more than I thought I would. I honestly am not a huge fan of turmeric or pumpkin....but I do love the color it imparts!

One mistake/lesson learned is I need to better mix my ingredients before forming the dough, I definitely had a few spots that were heavy on some of the spices. On the next loaf I'll thoroughly mix the flour, turmeric, and cinnamon together and then in a separate container mix the water, salt, starter, pumpkin together and then combine the dry and wet ingredients to make the dough.

[rwsaunders]

This gent posts some nice bread recipes on his blog...found surfing the web while waiting for my oven to come up to temp this morning.

A Return to The Basics of Sourdough Bread Baking