Yum yum

I LOVE these. I personally can't justify buying them in the summer, but now that it's winter, I'm totally hittin' Costco to get me some mango goodness.

Bread -- part II

So I took some notes on my bread making processes so I could pass them on.

Here's an example of the recipe I've used twice this week.

I took my sponge out of the fridge on Wednesday and doubled it. Then I doubled it again on Thursday. So Friday morning I had 8 ounces. I had Leilani mix 6 ounces of starter, 6 ounces of flour and 6 ounces of water and put it in the oven. I like storing it in the oven because it's protected.
When I got home a couple hours later, I mixed in about 11 ounces of flour. (Weight is a better measure than volume for flour. But for the flour I was using 6 ounces measured about 1 Cup.) This gave me a fairly wet dough. Flours are different so it's hard to say exactly how much you need. The way I can tell I have close to the right amount is that I add it and stir until it starts to clean the bowl. I also added a pinch of salt before I mixed it. Half the time I forget to do this. You can also add a couple of tablespoons of oil here to add a little flavor.
Then I started kneading it. A wet dough makes a better bread, so I try to use as little flour as possible. But it always takes some to keep things from sticking. I usually put some in my sifter and just dust the board and the dough.
I let the dough rest halfway through the kneading for about 20 minutes. Then I kneaded it a little more. It probably took 10-12 minutes of total kneading but I usually just stop when the dough is smooth, shiny, and stiff enough that it bounces back when I push on it.
I oiled a bowl and put the dough in. I covered the bowl with plastic wrap and put it back in the oven. If I'm in a hurry or the dough is very cold sometimes I turn the oven on for 30 seconds just to make it a little warmer. A slow rising dough is fine though if you have the time.
The rise is done when it's doubled in volume. You can tell by pushing on the dough. It should spring back slowly. If it doesn't spring back it's over-risen. If it springs back too fast it needs to rise more. If it's over-risen, just deflate it and let it rise again. It won't take nearly as long.
So I took my doubled dough and gently kneaded it to distribute the air. Then I divided it in half and shaped it into loaves. The only noteworthy thing here is that the skin of the loaf needs to be fairly tight.
Once the loaves had risen, I sliced across the top of them. These scoring cuts need to be about 1/2 an inch deep. The pattern doesn't really matter. If you don't do this enough your loaf will burst open. As soon as the loaves were scored I put them in the oven.
Halfway through the rising I preheated the oven to 425. When it got hot I sprayed the oven with a spray bottle. I do this a couple of times before the loaves go in and 2 or 3 times within the first few minutes -- each time trying to open the oven as little as possible.
About 30 minutes later the bread will look ready to come out. Then it needs to cool for 20 minutes or so before it can be eaten.
Now a word of encouragement: my first many loaves of sourdough were not devoured quickly. Hot bread, even mediocre hot bread still gets eaten. But once it's day old it needs a little bit of quality to get eaten -- at least around here. This proves just fine though because homemade croutons are a great use for this bread. (I'll post my technique some other time.) I used to make a lot of croutons. Now, I can't ever seem to keep bread around long enough to make croutons.

Sourdough Bread

So with my wife publicizing my breadmaking machinations, I've been deluged with requests (at least 2) for details.

So I make sourdough bread. (That is bread without commercial yeast; not necessarily bread with the famous San Francisco tanginess.) The only particular difficult part is making a starter. Once you have that, you just have to add some flour, stir and knead. You can add some salt, sugar, or oil if you like. I don't really work from a recipe but I'll try to estimate quantities in another post.

First, one needs to make a sourdough starter though. Because it is so heavily processed, all purpose white flour is really slow at picking up wild yeast. A store like WinCo that sells bulk flours lets you pick up a few better flours very cheaply. 2 or 3 pounds of flour will be ample for creating a savory starter.

There are some very fancy recipes online but it took me a while to figure out what underlied them all. It really doesn't take a recipe and is very simple. Start with 1 part flour plus 1 part water. Leave it at room temperature. Tomorrow you have to double the volume and keep the flour to water ratio even. The day after you double the volume. Pretty soon your mass of flour and water is a sweet smelling bubbly starter that will make great bread.

A few caveats. 1. Don't use metal to stir the starter as the reaction won't help. 2. Try and use filtered or purchased water at least to start as reactions won't help. 3. Since you're doubling the volume each day you may quickly have way too much. The solution is simply to discard half (or more of the mass) before doubling it. 4. Flours are different and the amount of water you need varies. The only way to tell how much to add is to try and get the consistency right. You want a batter that sticks to the spoon just a little as you pull your spoon away. Kind of a stringy look.

Depending on conditions you'll have a pet to keep in your refrigerator in as little as 5 days. My first try took almost two weeks though. Once you have it you need to either feed it each day or put it in the refrigerator and feed it once a week. I feed mine when I use it so once it's established there's no waste. Given the cost of those little yeast packets it's probably a fairly cost effective way to make bread. (Apparently some famous bakeries have kept their cultures alive for hundreds of years.)