Whole Wheat Sourdough Saga: Part 6

 Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5.


Before I tried again, I checked the with a sourdough bakers group online that I like, to see if I could find some ideas for how to proceed. And I learned some more things:

1. Sourness is adjustable. I'm actually not a huge fan, and so I'll be messing around. Apparently, baking soda can help, since it's alkaline. I'm not sure if I can add it directly to my start, and adjust it right at the outset, or if I'd have to continually adjust the dough. I may make a test batch of start and try it out to see what happens.

2. Another suggestion was to try a springform or other pan with tighter sides nested inside my dutch oven. The dutch oven keeps in the steam - and with a nested pan you can add a couple ice cubes right before you put it in - and the steam helps slow down crust formation. That would help two of my problems with the last loaf.

3. Somebody stopped by the last post and clarified about bakers' percents in the comments, which was very nice of them - it's by weight, not volume. Which is tricky; I don't have a good way to measure weight, and going out to get new equipment is not in the cards right now. But it's good to keep in the back of my head, and they had a suggestion of how they deal with the differences, which should be very helpful. I just have to figure out what this new information is going to mean when I am standing in my kitchen doing stuff.

4. I think the last batch may have been too wet, which lead to it not holding its shape. I need to read some more about hydration. Which will mean diving into more percent stuff.

So I cooked a batch of white bread with a little oats in it because I like it that way. And it turned out lovely.

So back to sourdough. I decided that the last dough was too wet, and that's why it hadn't held its shape well enough to rise up. And I took a suggestion from the sourdough people to try nesting a springform pan inside my dutch oven. That shrinks the space just a little, and gives a bit of support for the sides, and I still get the lid hold in the steam. So I made the dough and set everything all up. 

The dough felt good, and it rose nicely, I shaped it and put it in the pan, and let it rise again. I was making dinner, and looking at it, and it wasn't quite done. So I stared at it. It didn't make it go faster, but I did it anyway. My husband and sister laughed at me a little. But I kept peeking at the bread because it was acting right, and I was getting excited. Turns out there was good reason for that - it turned out great! So here's the final recipe:

Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread
1c sourdough start
1c warm water
1T honey
1t salt
2-3T oil
about 4c whole wheat flour

Put start and water in the stand mixer with honey, salt, and oil. Begin mixing and add flour a little bit at a time. Dough should ball up around the dough hook, but still feel spongy and moist when touched (do that with your mixer turned off so you don't break your finger). Let rise 2-3 hours in the bowl, until doubled. Spray a springform pan that fits in your dutch oven with Pam, oil the dough to keep it soft, and set it in a warm place to rise till double, about 1 1/2 hours. Squeeze an ice cube between the springform and the dutch oven to provide steam, and put the lid on the dutch oven to keep it in. This helps the crust stay softer and thinner. Bake at 400 for about 30 minutes covered, then uncover and bake 5-10 more. Remove from pans carefully, and let cool 5-10 minutes before cutting.

Isn't that pretty? It's tall enough to use for sandwiches. The crust is soft enough to please even Dragon - he devoured his piece and came back for more.

It was delicious.

Up next: sourdough muffins. 

Whole Wheat Sourdough Saga: Part 5

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.

OK. So, you know how I said that I wasn't going to be learning about bakers' percents? I sort of did it by accident. And it might even be useful.

In using baker’s percentage, each ingredient in a recipe is expressed as a percentage of the flour weight, and the flour weight is always expressed as 100%.

So if I have 4 cups of flour (100%) and 1 cup of water, then the water would be 25%. Huh. I learned about it by accident here, when I was reading about the role of oil in bread. They say that, on average, the oil in pizza dough will be between 2% and 5%. So in a 4c of flour recipe, 1/4 cup of oil would be 5%. I am making approximately a 4 cup recipe, but then there's more flour hiding in the start, and I'm not quite sure how to go about determining how much. But it would put the 1/4c oil that I'm thinking about putting in right about in the right range.

So I'm going with 1/4c oil for this variant. Here's today's recipe:

Today's Sourdough Bread
3/4c sourdough start
1c water
~1T honey
1/4c olive oil
3 1/2-4c whole wheat flour

So I baked it, and it turned out the best of any of the loaves so far. Really, the only complaint I have is that it's so flat. It spread out, rather than puffing up, and I'm not sure how to troubleshoot that. I'm thinking I'll have to take my questions to the sourdough group. Once it's cut, it's shaped a lot like biscotti.

The crust is reasonable. It's crunchy, rather than almost not there like the white bread, but it's a pleasant kind of crunch. The texture is nice. The flavor is good. The kids are eating it, and describing it as "awesome, except more hard crust". I think Dragon, my fussy crust guy, would adapt.

I just wish it was a touch taller, so we could make better sandwiches. 

"Mom, can I have another bread with jelly?"
"We can have bread, and jelly! Together!"

And they both at it all up. Yum.

Whole Wheat Sourdough Saga: Part 3

Part 1, Part 2, Part 4, and Part 5.

I woke my start up making zucchini bread. It was yummy. 

Now for sandwich bread. 

I have a recipe all picked out. I made the dough right before bed, then baked it the following morning. 

The recipe doesn't call for any oil, which I wasn't so sure about, since oil has an important part to play in bread. So I set up a second loaf for the afternoon. 

It's not terrible bread. But it's dense, which my family doesn't prefer, and the crust is really tough. I have to figure out what makes crust that way, so I can quit it. I have no idea at this point what is my problem and what is the recipe.

The second loaf, with oil, was better. But it's still tougher and denser than I like. There will be more experiments. I think the next one will be to use the dutch oven, and see if the heavier, lidded pan does better for me.

Whole Wheat Sourdough Saga: Part 1

I've been looking for a whole wheat sourdough bread recipe.

My, but that's a mouthful to say. Sorry.
It should be a tasty mouthful when I'm done figuring it out.

But that's what I'm after: whole wheat sourdough bread. The kind that isn't hard like the rocks I'm making now, and that's pretty easy to make, and I won't be learning bakers' percents for this project. Ain't nobody got time for that!

I've discovered some things recently:

1. Mostly wheat bread (which is what I'm making now, because the texture is appalling when I make 100%) makes my cravings stop. So much for bread being evil! A while back, I discovered that I'm chronically short on magnesium. Hence the chocolate cravings. (Ahem. Pardon me while I grab some dark chocolate chips.) And the muscle twitches. And a couple of other annoying things. I've been messing around with my sourdough partly because it's fun, and partly because it's cheap and that matters right now, and after a while I realized that my chocolate is lasting longer - I no longer felt like I had to go grab a handful after the kids go to bed. Which is cool. I'm pretty sure that it's the wheat flour: that stuff's got a fair amount of magnesium in it, and fermenting it a bit before I cook it does some cool chemical stuff that makes a whole bunch of nutrients much more bio-available.

2. Lots of people cook with all sorts of flours. Apparently sourdough is fancy food. Whatever. I want egg salad sandwiches and toast with butter. I need something basic. I want no strange einkorn flour, rice flour, rye flour, nor anything like it. At least, not today. Just plain wheat.

3. You can substitute sourdough for baking powder. Which is mostly unrelated to anything here, but it's seriously cool. Takes a touch of planning, though.

4. Sourdough bread is not like white bread. Seriously. The finished product is similar, but the dough? It's a whole 'nuther critter. Practically needs its own word, it's so different from white dough. It's crazy stuff. And finding someplace that will give me a recipe for the proper care and feeding of the start (seriously, here! that stuff is alive!) so that it will magically make awesome bread... it's been a task.

So I'm trying this one. Perfect Sourdough Bread. She's suggesting a couple of changes from what I'm doing now: first, she feeds her start twice daily. I'd begun to suspect that mine wants that kind of treatment. I'm going to try it out. AND, she says that it ought to be thick. So I'm going to go a bit thicker than I have been. We'll see. I'm excited. I'll post pictures. And thus begins a Search For The Perfect Sourdough Saga. At least it'll be a tasty trip.

Onward to Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 or Part 5.

Random Stuff

Item #1:
I was thinking I'd like to be Red Riding Hood for Halloween. At this point, it's not going to be for this year, but I did find this pattern for a chemise that would be a great start to the costume. Plus, it's about the easiest thing ever to make. The hard part seems to be finding a pattern for the overdress. I'm thinking something like this. Only, not $200. I don't have that to spend on a costume.

Item #2:
I've been reading the Gospels to Monkey, and this week we're working our way through Luke 1. Monkey asks good questions. Today, after he went to sleep, the Daddy and I got talking about Gabriel. Gabriel announced both John the Baptist and the Lord, and he also visited Daniel. Modern revelation tells us that Gabriel is Noah, and that Noah is second only to Adam, the Archangel. This got me to wondering, what is an archangel, anyway? Turns out, it's pretty interesting. I spent some time wandering around dictionary.com learning about it.

Archangel comes from the Greek, from "arkh," meaning first, ruling, or chief. So the archangel is the first, or ruling angel. Another interesting thing I discovered, in the Bible Dictionary this time, is that Michael means "who is like God." So when we say, "Michael the Archangel," we are saying, "The ruling angel who is like God." That's high praise!

Item #3:
I've been making yogurt. And when you make yogurt it's all goey, so I strain it. Thus, I have whey. If I strain it too much my yogurt becomes cream cheese, but that's not all bad. I don't want to waste the whey, so I've been looking at uses for it. And it turns out there's plenty. So far, I've tried it in bread. Works for rolls, leave it out of the pizza crust. I put some in rice - can't really tell a difference, but the whey isn't in my fridge any more, and it didn't get wasted. Also, my cookbook Nurturing Traditions has uses for whey. I haven't tried most of those. Apparently you can also make ricotta cheese out of it, but I haven't tried that yet. Or, another cheese called "zigger." One of these days I'm going to try making cheese too. But I need to figure out where to get this thing called, "rennet."

Item #4:
This clip amuses me.

Yummy Ideas

This looks tasty. I'm thinking about it. I think making cheese would be fun. Besides, the clip is funny. More toward the end, but it's in there.


Then there's this recipe for a cold cereal replacement. I'd love to replace our cold cereals with something more healthy. Only the hot cereals I've tried, my family won't eat. And muffins don't go over very well, not for breakfast. But cold cereal... it's not healthy. Tastes good, and it's what we usually eat, but it's not good for you. Nikki has a recipe for a replacement that I'm thinking about trying. And it's peanut butter. What's not to like? Nikki actually mentions a cookbook I have: Nurturing Traditions. The guy that wrote it is out there. Way out there. Comes across like a nutjob. But I've done some independent research, and the stuff he says about wheat and whole grains makes sense. It appears that his science is good. Plus, the recipes in the book, the ones I've tried anyway, are pretty tasty. Except he says you ought to eat organ meats. Liver and stuff. That doesn't sound very tasty. But his bread recipes? They work. The technique for this cereal is similar to the book. Who knows? Maybe it'd be something my family would eat.

And there's this one. Making Mozzarella. Man, that's interesting. I need to find a book about making cheese.