A round loaf is a thing of beauty

Not been around lately, what with going on holiday for a few days (back to Menton if you wanted to ask), moving my Mum into sheltered housing and losing internet access...

My starters though managed quite happily through the mess of my life, calmly sitting in the fridge gently bubbling and smiling to themselves. Time for the White One to come to the fore again I thought. And it was so strong! I fed it up over two days, and it was bubbling like a little volcano. There is no doubt that as these two starters are getting older they are more and more reliable.

So, using Hamelman's trusty Pain de Campagne again as my base recipe, substituting 200g of rye flour for the same of plain, I decided to try out my newest acquisitions, 2 lovely cane bannetons bought from eBay for a very good sharp price...

The last couple of times I have baked, I have left the dough in the fridge overnight, but the timings didn't work for me this time, so this was made and baked in the one day. I think the flavour in the overnight is perhaps a little more rounded, and I think also that I like a little more rye than this had, but it is still a good bread.


Doesn't it look lovely? I did make two, but the other pictures didn't come out well (and this is a bit dodgy) but it does show the lovely break in the crust.

Now, I know that properly speaking, it is not supposed to do that, it should have been proofed a bit longer so it just opened out the slashes, and didn't actually make a break for the border, but I love the texture of these explosions, so I am not at all unhappy.



And the crumb is nice and not too big holey, just perfect for toast in the morning.

Because, even though holes are nice, your Marmite falling into your lap is perhaps less than desirable.

I think that is it for my basic Rye and Wheat Sourdough, I think my "journey" is played out, it is now a good staple, easy to do, no problem. Start on Thursday evening with first feeding, feed again on Friday evening, ferment and fold on Saturday, bake on Sunday. It sounds a lot of faffing about, but it is so easy and quick each time, just a question of minutes. Well worth it.

Next challenge is to find a recipe for a white loaf that will give me the same flavour I remember from when I was a child, and all bread was baked by small bakeries on the premises. I want a fat, luscious bloomer. All slashes and poppy seeds, and soft swirly crumb.

Any suggestions gratefully received...

Pain de Campagne - two different ways

I have been experimenting over the last couple of weeks with a recipe for Pain de Campagne posted on The Fresh Loaf .

You can find the recipe here:

Bread is lovely and open holey artisan type bread, made with a sourdough starter.

Last week I used my rye starter:



Nice loaf, but I made a mistake of making the rolls too small, so they were rather leathery, and not very nice toasted (which is how I eat most of my bread, for breakfast).



The crumb was lovely and open though. And the bread was very very tasty.

So I baked again today, but this time used my white starter, and added the rye in with the main flour.

Odd how just that small change can make such a difference in the bread.

David Snyder (whose recipe this is) also suggested that I bake a little longer, to get a crustier crust. So I did. Trouble is, my oven is hotter no one side than the other.

Peering through the door, I saw a lovely russety crust.





But when I took it out of the oven, I think dark brown may be tinged with ...

burnt.

Or at least it is in my book. But it IS crunchy!


The crumb is much lighter in colour than the last one, and much milder in flavour. It will be interesting to see how this toasts.



I have another loaf cooling at the moment - a completely different flour I found on the shelf at Sainsbury's. Allinsons Oatmill. Sounds interesting, so I'll report on that next when it is cool and cut open.

The Sourdough Saga - the disaster continues

Oh woe is me...

The 2nd attempt has been nearly (not quite as the result is at least partly edible) as disastrous as the first.



However, for brick now read pancake.

I swear I followed the instructions - sort of.....

but I ran out of time, so I stuck the whole lot in the fridge overnight - see left how it came out. I thought it looked alright..

I knew that I had to let it warm up for a couple of hours in the morning so I did just that. Except it never really rose properly again after turning it and shaping it. I think I should have put it in the fridge much earlier on, instead of giving it pretty much the full rise time before it went in, as I think I exhausted my starter and shaping the bread just pushed all the oomph out and there was nothing left to carry on.


Nice crust, but soggy inside... tasted ok day one, but the nice air bubbles showing in the photo subsided like a soggy brick day two. Now binned like Take One....


Never mind.

Better luck next time.. maybe it will be third time lucky?

The Sourdough saga - day 2

Bread hit the bin.

Interestingly, it was less sour yesterday after sitting overnight. But there was no doubt of its brickdom.

So... starters out of the fridge, sat overnight to warm up, fed 1:4:4 by weight this morning - rye, one white. Rye came out much doughier, white more liquid, obviously down to the absorbency of the flour.

That was at 9 am , now half one, and only small bubbles on both. So alive but not thriving. Will have to split and feed again this evening and keep my fingers crossed.

If I can get this up and running properly, I can test my idea that perhaps eating sourdough bread will be good for the system and fight any candida that might be affecting my weight loss (for which read lack of...)

Making Sourdough.... first trial.

When we were in France recently, I was eating the gorgeous pain de seigle that is served everywhere. Lovely moist bread, slightly grey in colour, just a slight tang from the rye.

Could I find it here... no chance.

The nearest I could find was the pain levain that is on sale in most good supermarkets (we don't have a good artisan baker near here) but that was still not quite it.

Levain - that is sourdough. So I started my internet searches, found tons of info on sourdough starters, and started my own. That was a week ago, and yesterday, I reckoned my starter was lively enough to bake bread with. After wandering around, I decided on Susan's Favourite Sourdough at Wild Yeast


weeeeeeelllllllll.....

I don't think I got it right this time. The bread is rather dark and hard and very very sour. I might try cutting very thin slices and drying it to see if makes nice crispy melba toast things, but I don't think I want to eat it as bread.

I think I was generally impatient:

a) I think I didn't let the starter get quite lively enough before I started.
b) I don't think I proved it quite enough - or that it was taking too long because I hadn't done a)
c) No oven spring, so something wasn't right.
d) Over cooked so crust is hard not crackly.

So starter out of the fridge again and feed until I see much more vigorous growth and start again.

by which time my dough whisk and scrapers should have arrived from the USA. Amazingly it was cheaper to buy from there and have it sent, than to buy in the UK (assuming I ever found a dough whisk which I hadn't up to now.) I bought it from Breadtopia - a very informative site.