OK I have discovered home made bread and how to make an
astounding sourdough loaf.
Check this out...
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OK I have discovered home made bread and how to make an
astounding sourdough loaf.
Check this out...
Nice. I have baked a lot of bread. Currently I am not baking bread because it causes my bread intake to increase substantially. If I am going to bake I usually go for something I have a little more self control with, like a pie. Pies work out especially good at work because my coworkers can make quick work of a pie and I only ever eat one slice. Bread however is my weakness, I could sit down with a nice warm loaf of your sour dough and some butter and just keep getting heavier.
I can make a few different breads. I love a nice warm plain focaccia with olive oil and balsamic vinegar to dunk it in. My first wife taught me. Like Rezdog I am a bread hound. She would make 2 loafs and I would eat one as soon as it came out of the oven. I don't have my own kitchen now or it would always be on the counter.
Sourdough just doesn't work for me. Nor does blue cheese or anything that even remotely sounds spoiled. Sour cream yikes. Wish I could but...ain't happenin'
Hi Nifty, yes I do a sourdough. Made my own starter too, from a recipe I got off the internet. It's made from a mixture of unbleached white and rye flour that picks up natural yeasts from the air. A few days of brewing and it's ready to use. I love the look of your crust; somehow I don't think this is your first one:)
I'm with RezDog on this...Right up to the part about pies...They're my other weakness. Workmates wouldn't see a crust of that either. I still occasionally bake a bread, usually as I'm too lazy to go out and buy a loaf when the wife is away and doesn't do the shopping (I was banned from shopping because I refused to buy anything I considered 'junk food', and my wife's weakness is ice-cream. It gives me a rare excuse to bake bread too). I like darker loaves or grain breads. I haven't made my own starter for sourdough yet, but I've had a go at making a few loaves. It isn't a favourite though.
Mick
I have a starter in the fridge always!
The last couple of years I'd say we are at about 50% home-baked and store-bought bread around here.
As others have said, bread is the staple of my food intake.
W eat bread every single day of the year up here.
More often than not, several times a day.
Love it!!
Does a bread machine count?:)
Now my wife can and will bake anything you want, including bread; in fact, she is baking right now. But she has to be in the mood to do it (baking, that is).
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The fruits of today's baking for afternoon coffee and cake. This is why I will never see my abs, despite a very disciplined workout program!
I have baked bread for 20 years. Some good and some were door stops.
Never reached the point I wanted to be at with quality.
Then I ran across this video made by the NY Times.
The product from this method is like candy, it's so good.
No muss, no fuss.
I use an iron dutch oven pot, and it's fool proof.
The flavor is amazing from just these few ingredients.
Check it out. It will change your bread making for ever.
No-Knead Bread - Video - NYTimes.com
Grand Uncle was a baker; he taught me how to make bread over 50 years ago. I am mostly a seeded rye abd braided challah guy. Cornbread and muffin a speciality.
i bake bread for my family to eat. With all the junk they put in our food now i figure its safer and cheaper. My family will kill off a loaf of bread as soon as it comes out of the oven, so now i make it in a batch of four. I can also make,though havent in a while, bagels. My starter hasnt been touched in a month or two, i hope its still good
I'd like to try my hand at sourdough sometime. I did get my grandmother's buttermilk cornbread recipe years ago before she died. I am confident that I now make it better than she did-dirt simple recipe too. I'll share it here:
Preheat an oven to 450 F
Grease a cast iron pan lightly with shortening, then dust lightly with cornmeal mix
Melt a stick of salted butter in the microwave
Pour it into a bowl full of white cornmeal MIX-no extra salt, eggs, baking powder, nothing, just the mix! Fold it in with a fork or spatula
Pour in and gently mix in a good, high quality whole buttermilk until the whole mixture is almost liquid (important for a moist,tender inside!).
Cook in that red-hot oven until it's good and brown on the outside (about 30 minutes).
You can crisp up the bottom by mopping it more with melted butter or bacon grease about 5-10 minutes before it's done.
Turn out onto a plate,cut in wedges, cut open a slice and put in a generous hunk of butter: I guarantee you it will be the best cornbread you ever had.
Optional: if you want to indulge your inner Southerner, pour a bunch of yellow-eye beans slow-cooked with ham hocks or side meat over a wedge, and enjoy with green onions and ice-cold milk.
Welcome to the heart disease belt of America! Aaron
Hello, two dogs...Well three now...:)
Mick
I was on a bread-making kick for a couple of years, particularly sourdoughs. Then we moved and I got rather busy and the temperature of the oven in our current house seems a bit off, so I haven't made any for about a year. I would like to though.
Where can a good sourdough starter be found?
I may try to make a no-knead sourdough.
The only decent sourdough bread I ever had was in San Francisco.
Good link.....
This cast iron dutch oven is magic.
I use a: Lodge LCC3 Pre-Seasoned Cast-Iron Combo Cooker, 3-Quart
dutch oven. The top is a pan, a lid, a base.
For bread I use the deep pan section as a lid.
For sourdough I take a spoon full of starter and disolv/ disperse
it in the water. I do have the cool willow baskets to give the
loaf a cool look. A sharp knife is necessary to score the loaf
so it can get the full bounce in the oven. Yes razor sharp....
To keep my SD starter happy I make sourdough pancakes
and waffles more often because bread does take a lot of time.
Sourdough for pancakes is overnight -- sleep tight.
Yeast only is fine for those that dislike SD. One key
is the long 12-19 hour ferment/ rise that the NYT video
talks about. Look for Bittman books ... he does his homework.
I've been baking bread and other things for probably 40 years. I learned while I was mess cooking in the Navy. I worked the night shift with our baker who actually was a baker before joining.
These days I buy the raw wheat and grind my own. Until you have done that you will never know what truly fresh ground flour tastes like in a bread.
Some of the Norwegian rye recipes are wonderful. 'Multi-day builds, flavor that'll make you cry.
'Been perfecting a Russian-style black rye. Some use sweeteners - usually molasses, but you can avoid by substituting strong black coffee poured over 2/3 c of raisins and pureeing in a blender. Also, even most formulas that use a rye sourdough starter, call for commercial yeast in the final mix. I sacrifice a little rise to keep it sourdough only.
http://straightrazorpalace.com/conve...ily-bread.html
http://straightrazorpalace.com/finer...hing-tool.html
ScouthikerDad: - sourdough is a little harder than commercially yeasted bread, but overwhelmingly worth it - nutritionally and flavor-wise. All of the writing about grains being bad nutrition (wheatbelly, etc) *assume* commercial yeast, and usually a GMO flour. Even the wheatbelly blog acknowledges that none of the risks apply when done w/ sourdough & non-GMO grain/flour. A magnificent 76 y.o. lady spent 5 hrs showing me the basics. That was in '07. I've not bought bread since then. I did, buy a grain mill, pizza stone, wood-fired oven...
Those of us in the States, think sourdough is only a tangy white loaf - Ohhh are you in for a surprise. Try a multi-day build of a Wheat/Rye blend, and you're done for. Or a 100% whole grain spelt (this is a bugger to learn to make).
Same things apply as razors & shaving - if you get near Portland, OR - shout - I'll gladly honor my teacher by passing along what humble levels of knowledge I have.
Too funny.... shucks butter my toast.
An old starter might be coaxed into life but it takes a while.
Make yeast only bread while the starter is revised.... just do
not add yeast to the starter.
The Sourdough starter needs to cycle through the wild yeast and the
wild lactobacillus stages over and over to be stable. Once it is stable it is quite durable and
folk tell me that it can even be frozen. One way to get a clean starter is
the Goldrush brand name package. It takes a while to get it cycled
and healthy and might be the best trick if you live in a modern clean house
or desert or someplace without enough natural wild yeast the way
the San Francisco bay area has. All the world had their own flavor and mix, Poland,
South Africa, parts of Australia... and there is a lot of sharing and trying
by groups around the world. France is rediscovering their wild yeasts.
I am lucky -- moved to the SF bay area, made it easy to get a bit from
a friend. Today I have a many year old starter from a professional baker.
He taught me a lot about how to keep it live and how to pick off
sponge at various stages of tartness.
The yeast part generates alcohol, the lactobacillus-sanfranciscii (spelling?)
generates a lactic acid. Other bacteria turn alcohol into vinegar. If you get
the temperature and time right it is more flavor than sour. The acids break
some of the long chain sugars to feed the yeast and other bacteria
get a near soy sauce flavor enhancement (Umami) action.
The crust and crumb balance are whatever you want. Take the lid off
so it browns to your liking about the time the inside crumb is done.
The dutch oven trick lets me use a very sticky wet dough and when the
lid comes off a great golden crust develops. This crust is mostly not possible
in a common bread maker.
Making good bread is a lot of work but makes the great professional baker's
loaf even more valuable and appreciated.
To some degree this increased value and appreciation of quality applies
to honing a razor. If you take the time do the work and try there is
increased appreciation of the quality of a professional honemaster.
If you know someone that has done the homework and that person makes a
recommendation.... it is all good.... all good.
Robert, I was going to email you that there was a post going on bread making and wondering why you weren't posting. I wish I could find monthly excuses to have sessions with you so I can taste even one slice of your bread. I'm not a foodie but when something is in the arena of perfection memory and recall become strong. I'd start baking again but since my son and his family next door went gluten free (don't ask) the bread would either go stale or I'd put on too many pounds again.
There are many sources: The easy one is "Goldrush Sourdough Starter Packet"
many grocery stores have it next to the yeast. It can be had from Amazon.
For goodness sakes hunt a local friend that loves sourdough... they may
have a healthy starter to share.
The only difficult part is getting the starter started. The grains of starter
are a little slow getting launched. They have you discard half
from yesterday and add flour and water over and over until the starter
cycles with energy and vigor.
I am impatient and frugal, there is no problem in tossing the discard(*) into
a common yeast and flour mix and making "ordinary" yeast bread. When the
starter gets legs the bread will not be ordinary.
In the book "Tartine Bread, by Chad Robertson the author discusses
the use of 'poulish' where he ferments both sourdough and yeast doughs
then mixes them for a flavor he likes. He keeps his sourdough healthy
in isolation... and bakes up a stellar loaf -- famous in SF.
(*)Back to the discard...
In feeding a SD starter it needs to cycle. Like beer and wine
the products of fermentation kill/ hobble the bacteria and yeast. By
saving some and tossing some then adding fresh flour and water
to the saved bit the culture stays vigorous and cycles through the various stages
necessary for flavor. Feeding twice a day works well for me (best flavor).
Refrigerate if you want a break from feeding it or go on vacation, for
a long vacation try freezing some. Get neighbors excited and
they will share....
Gluten free? Are they celiac's? That's a relatively uncommon condition my nurse wife tells me. She mentioned to me once that most people who think they are allergic to gluten are in fact dehydrated, they're not getting enough water to aid in digestion; hence, many foods cause discomfort...
We used to bake bread, was absolutely awesome, until we found out that the calorie's were huge...
Phrank, no they are not celiac sufferers. Far from it. My daughter in law is far from dehydrated and my son is a general contractor and knows the dangers of heat and lack of water. She is a bit of a health nut and convinced my son to go on it with her and they swear that they have never felt better and have had an increase in energy. I say I will most likely out live them with my bread, chocolate cake and veggies diet.
Hahaha...yes, I think they call that the, "placebo effect"....wasn't it Oat Bran a couple of years ago?
My favorite breakfast is home baked bread, and a big bowl of slow cooked Iron Oats, with some fresh fruit, a little cream, and some maple syrup...
edited to add: I'll bring the cooked Iron Oats if I can have a piece of that beautiful loaf of bread above this post....looks gorgeous Stefan!!!:D
Yes uncommon but a wheat gluten free sourdough is not outside of the reach of the home baker.
One option is rye crackers...
Another is dolsa made with rice flour but given a SD fermentation step, again a cracker.
Loaves are also possible and can be very good. The baker that gave me a knob of his SD starter
makes a very very fine gluten free loaf.
Without playing doctor sourdough falls into a family of long fermentation breads
where the glycemic index busting sugars are mostly consumed by yeast and
other fermentation processes modify long chain sugars and many proteins.
This pre-digestion seems to have value for those with many problems but not
all.... so pay attention and work with your doctor.
Cows seem to need antibiotics because the corn feed modifies the pH of the animal
gut which is normally much more acidic when grass fed. So what you eat and how you eat it
can prove important. Sourdough is acidic... hmmm....
As always watch out for the glutton factor... it may be more important than the gluten
factor.
Break bread with friends... that may be the most healthy way to eat.
Great Thread this! I used to bake a lot of bread, but not much anymore...my sourdough starter is over 30 years old. Now a days...SD Biscuits, nice and flaky,and lots of fresh SD Pancakes.
Thanks,
I have since tried the goldrush starter. Also started from scratch with instructions off the net which used pineapple juice.
The resulting breads were good, but, I think mostly from the no-knead cast iron pot method than from sourdough.
I could get varying degrees of SD taste by adjusting the amount of started.
I think I'll stay with plain white. All the variations I have tried, I always come back to plain white for the great flavor.
Haven't reached the level of Sourdough just yet, but I do bake bread rather regularly.
The kids gobble it up before it has had a chance to cool, so usually I bake 2-3 loaves. I mostly make french-style Miche's, using full grain flour, and frequently adding in a portion of kamut, spelt, or other "specialty" grains. When I'm short on time, I avoid a full second rise, and shape the dough into bread-sticks (or mini-baguettes) and they are always a hit.
A ceramic or terra cotta stone (pizza stone) is a must for me, and plenty of steam in the oven when baking for a crisp crust.
Although some swear by the no-knead recipes, I find the kneading quite pleasant and the zen-like repetitive movements yield a feeling very similar to stropping...
Since I don't have a commercial oven with steam injection (yes, this exists - look at THIS ONE which retails for about $12K for one deck!), I use the old school method: I put a shallow pan in the bottom of the oven before cranking up the heat. When I place the dough in the oven, I dump a half-cup of water into the shallow pan - this creates plenty of steam (you have to do it quick to avoid burns, and close the door quick!). I may repeat 2-3 times, depending on the size of the loaves I'm baking.
I have heard of others that wish to avoid the heat loss/instability of opening the oven door - like the pressure cooker method, but that's too much for me. The "dump it in" method seems to work fine, but as always YMMV.
I've found the safest way to add steam is just use a spray bottle and quickly spray some water into the oven. I tried the pan method and a few years ago was clumsy with removing the pan which of course has super heated water which spilled on the oven door cracking the glass and that was about a $350 repair job.
If I recall correctly from some years ago, I heard that steam is only needed in the beginning of the bake to crisp the crust.
Does that seem true with your experiences?
Somehow I missed this.
This steam problem is addressed by a dutch oven. Preheat to 400F plop in the dough
and cover. The small enclosed space and tight lid keep the steam near the loaf
for long enough to cook it. Once cooked the lid is removed and the crust can brown.
Oven gloves are a MUST.
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The top is the bottom.... both ways work.
This cast iron combo is reasonable.
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Note how blond the loaf is when the cover is removed.
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Back in the oven uncovered to brown...