The Search for Softer Sweeter Sourdough

This weekend, I'm trying a variation on the Sourdough loaf from last weekend.  It was so good, but it was very chewy with a very firm crust.  I'm a soft bread kind of girl.  I know that people enjoy the artisan, homemade feeling of a really crunchy crust, but not me.  So if I'm going to make sourdough breads more frequently, I'm going to have to find a way to make it more enjoyable for me.

Thankfully, lots of people have played with this before, so I'm not having to reinvent the wheel.  I can just work off what others have done.  This week, I started with Home Joys Soft Sourdough Bread and then applied some of what I'm learning about sourdough from a few websites (like Northwest Sourdough) and a few Facebook groups.

Softer Sweeter Sourdough

Ingredients:

• 1 C (8 fl oz) milk
• 1/4 C oil or melted butter (I used butter)
• 1/4 C honey
• 12 oz whole wheat flour
• 12 oz AP flour
• 4 oz water, divided
• 1 Tbsp fine sea salt
• 2 C active sourdough starter

Instructions:

1. Mise en place
• You know I always say this, because it really does help.  Start organized. Put things away as you use them. You'll be glad you built this habit.
  
• But Jenn!  Sourdough takes all day to make; I don't want my counters cluttered that long!
• You're right - but we use up almost all the ingredients in the first 10 minutes.  Trust me!
2. Mix the base of the dough.
• Mix milk, butter (or oil), honey, flours, and 2 oz of water together until well combined.

  

  I should have trusted my instincts here that I didn't like how this looked...

  
  
• I used all unbleached AP flour.  It's a texture thing for me; I've never really liked whole wheat flours.  I'm working up to it.
• Always try to use the same measuring utensil for the oil/butter/greasy product and the sticky one.  In this case, I measure the butter first (even though I can measure it from the wrapper, I pour it into a measuring cup).  Then, when I measure the honey, it doesn't stick to the cup!  Magic.  Seriously.  I learned this in my 40s.  I've been trying to cook for... a lot longer.  This works for honey, molasses, maple syrup, etc.  You're welcome.
• Cover and let rest for 2 hours.
• This is what is called autolyse.  It lets the flours hydrate and begins the gentle process of building the gluten that holds your bread together, without over-handling it and making it tough.
• We do not want salt in here yet.
• Last week, my starter was part of the autolyse.  This week I'm trying it without the starter.  I've read about both ways and thought I'd try it this way.
• Combine the salt and remaining 2 oz of water in a small bowl and allow to dissolve.
  
• I had to warm up my water a bit to get the salt to actually dissolve. 10 to 15 seconds in the microwave.
• We're doing this to help with the distribution of salt in the next step.  Otherwise, we might end up with pockets of salt in our dough.
3. Mix the final dough together.
• Add the starter to the rested autolysed (Is that even a word??) part and combine.
  

  

  Uhhhh... This is gonna be tricky...
• Once it is mostly combined, add the salt water and squish it with your hands until combined and forming a rough dough.

  

  I don't like the looks of this at all...

  
  
• This is supposed to be a wet dough (like last week), so it will not look like a finished, kneaded loaf like we saw in the yeast doughs I made last month.  It will come together in the end, I think...
4. Stretch & Fold (S&F)
• Every 30 minutes for 2 hours, stretch the dough and fold it back on itself 4 times (12 o'clock, 3, 6, and 9).
• You can read my attempt at a description on last week's recipe, or search the internet for some videos.
  
  **At this point in the game, I need to admit something.  I'm an hour into my planned S&F... and it's a mess.  An embarrassing mess (I didn't even take a picture).  So I just dumped it all into the bowl of my stand mixer, stuck the dough hook on it, and kneaded it for a minute or two at varying speeds.  It still felt lumpy, but it was much better.  And it was still wet and sticky, but I decided to do some extra S&F to make up for this odd extra step.  It's noon - and I'm going to restart the clock on my S&F - so 2 more hours before Rest#1.
  
  
5. Rest #1
• At the end of the 2 hours, cover the dough and let it rest for an hour.
6. Divide and Pre-shape
• Divide the dough into 2 equal parts.  I use my kitchen scale to make sure!
• Gently coax the 2 lumps of dough into rounds.  It doesn't have to be perfect, but we want to get a start at forming the skin and building the surface tension.

  

  They're looking better.  I kneaded in some extra flour and they're holding shape fairly well.

  
  
7. Rest #2
• Cover the dough and let it rest for another 30 minutes to an hour.
• Resting is what makes sure that our bread doesn't get too tough.  The strands of gluten need time to relax every so often.
8. Shape and put in bowls or bannetons
• While the dough is resting, prepare your bowls or bannetons.  I still don't have bannetons, so I'm using bowls that are different sizes. This should be interesting.
• Line the bowls with clean kitchen towels.
• Generously dust the towel with rice flour.  Go to town.  Rub it in.  Make a pretty good layer because this is what will prevent you from getting annoyed at the towel in a few steps.
• Gently do one round of S&F.
• Form into rounds by cupping your hands around either side of the dough and gently pull under and around.  A bit like turning a steering wheel while trying to adjust your steering wheel cover.  I know, I know. That makes no sense.  It's so hard to explain this bit.  You are turning the dough with your hands and stretching the surface to build tension all with one fluid motion.
  
• Place the rounds of dough upside-down into the towel-and-flour-lined bowls.  Yes, upside-down.  Trust me.  We're going to invert this one more time before baking, so what is now the top will become the bottom.
  
9. Final Rise (Rest #3)
• Cover the bowls with plastic wrap and towels.
• Let rise for 3-4 hours.
• I keep my apartment on the cool side, so I will often let my doughs rise in an oven that I've preheated to the lowest possible temperature and then turned off.  There is just enough heat to be an environment that the wee yeasties love!
  

  

  Ooops.  This might be a bit over-proofed...
  

10. Bake
• Remove the dough from the cold oven!
• Preheat oven for at least 30 minutes to 450°
• Preheat the pans for at least 10 minutes
• Cut 2 pieces of parchment paper that are long enough to get into your pans or dutch ovens or cloches.
• Invert a bowl of dough gently onto a piece of parchment.
  
  **Another note: It was definitely over-proofed.  It deflated pretty seriously when I got it out onto the parchment.  I was able to score it, and get it into the pans, but I probably should have dealt with the over-proofed-ness (That is TOO a word... shush!).  I'm stubborn... I pressed on pretending that there wasn't a problem.
  
• Use a sharp knife or lame to score the top.
• Do not skip this step.  It is essential for the proper baking of the bread.
• You can do a simple X or + shape.  As you get more comfortable, you can start to make designs to decorate the top of your bread.
• Using the sides of the parchment, lift the loaf and gently (and carefully) lower the loaf into the pan.
• The pan is hot!  Don't forget that.
• Parchment Parchment Parchment!  I forgot it last week in my excitement - and my bread was thoroughly stuck to my pans.  It was very sad.
• Cover with the lids and put into the oven to bake.
• Bake for 20 minutes.
• Remove the lids.
• Bake for an additional 15-20 minutes until the color is good and the bread sounds hollow when you thump it.
• Use the parchment to lift the bread from the pan and allow to cool completely on a rack.

 I live a charmed life.  These loaves are so pretty!  There was plenty of "oven spring" (which is just a fancy way of saying "it puffed up while cooking").  It probably would have been better if I'd allowed for a last extra rise... next time.

Tonight was a good experiment in my kitchen!

Sourdough bread - Recipe and pictures

The background of some of my research and learnings are over on the Overview page.  Feel free to read there and then come back here... we'll wait... no really, go ahead and read it.

Welcome back! Today's experiment is taken mostly from Sourdough Bread from The Kitchn.  I always want to give credit where credit is due.  I didn't make this process up - I'm just documenting how I followed it and what I learned to hopefully make it easier for someone else.

Today... Today we bake bread!  I'm so stinkin' excited!!

The ingredients and procedures for the Starter and Levain are on their respective pages.  Here is the last list of ingredients and procedures for our Sourdough loaves.

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon salt
• 525 grams water, divided
• 700 grams all-purpose flour or bread flour

Instructions (this is apt to get very lengthy):

1. Mise en place... well...kind of not necessary today.  There is no "Mise" to "place"! :)
2. Test the levain... or don't.  There are varying views on this.  I didn't and mine was fine.
3. Dissolve the salt.
• Mix the salt with 50g of room temperature water.
• Stir to dissolve.
• I only have kosher salt in the house and might consider keeping some fine sea salt around for baking.  It will dissolve better.
  
4. Make the dough.
• Mix the levain with 475g of water.  Stir until mostly blended.
  
• Add 700g flour and stir until the dough comes together, there are no more pockets of dry flour, and it resembles a shaggy lump.
  
5. Rest #1
• Cover and let the dough rest for 30 minutes to 4 hours.
• This is called the "autolyse".  I still don't understand it fully, but we're letting the flour get hydrated without working it to death and building up too much gluten.
6. Mix in the salt water.
• Pour in the salt water.
• Get messy!  Stick your hands into the goo and start squishing it all around.  I found this was faster and more effective than trying to work in the salt water with a spatula or wooden spoon.  And it was fun.
  
7. Stretch and Fold
• Imagine your bowl is a clock.  Grab the dough at 12 o'clock and stretch it upwards. I was using cheap plastic bowls and this was very tricky.  The dough didn't want to stretch, it just dragged the bowl along with it.  I ended up holding the bowl down with my elbows.  Yeah - it was pretty funny.  Should have had someone here to take pictures... anyway...
• Once you have stretched it a bit, bring the part you have up in the air back down to the bowl and fold it over the dough so you've brought 12 down to 6.  Does that make sense?  It does to me, but I did it.  And it is harder to explain than I expected... anyway...
• Turn the bowl a quarter turn and repeat.  Do this all the way around the clock - so you've folded 12 to 6, 3 to 9, 6 to 12, and 9 to 3.  I really hope that makes sense...
• Repeat this process every 30 minutes for a total of 6 times.  I did this at noon, 12:30, 1, 1:30, 2, 2:30.  Make sense?
• This series of photos is after each S&F.  Blogger isn't liking when I add captions to these pictures so they're here in order 1 through 6.
  
• The dough didn't change as much as I think it should have.  I need to work on this process a bit more, I think.
8. Rest #2
• After the last S&F, cover the dough and let it rest for 30 minutes to an hour.
9. Divide and pre-form (Rest #3)
• Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface.  I actually needed to gently knead in a little flour.  My dough was really sticky.  But in the end, I think it needed to be a bit sticky.
• Split the dough into 2 equal-weight pieces.  I used the kitchen scale again to make sure they were close.  They need to be close or the same to bake at the same time and temp.
• Gently form them into rounds.
• Cover and rest for another 30 minutes.
10. Prepare the proofing bowls or baskets
• Line 2 bowls or baskets with clean dishtowels.  Do this... I didn't and I wish I had.
• Dust them heavily with flour.  No really.  Go to town.  This is going to save you later.  Use plenty of flour.
• Rub the flour into the bottom and sides.  There should be a layer all around.  Excess can always be brushed off later, but stuck dough will be stuck.
11. Shape the loaves and put into the proofing baskets
• This is even harder to explain.  I'm going to quote The Kitchn because I can't even begin to explain...
• "Dust the top of one of the balls of dough with flour. Flip it over with a pastry scraper so that the floured side is against the board and the un-floured, sticky surface is up. Shape the loaf much like you folded the dough earlier: Grab the lip of the dough at the bottom, pull it gently up, then fold it over onto the center of the dough. Repeat with the right and left side of the dough. Repeat with the top of the dough, but once you've fold it downward, use your thumb to grab the bottom lip again and gently roll the dough right-side up. If it's not quite a round or doesn't seem taut to you, cup your palms around the dough and rotate it against the counter to shape it up. Repeat with the second ball of dough."
• Transfer the formed rounds into the proofing baskets with the seam side UP.  Yes, up.  The bottom is exposed in this step so that when we invert the basket to remove the dough later the bottom is down.
  
12. Rest/Rise #4
• Cover with plastic wrap and a tea towel and let rest 3-4 hours.
• Alternately, you can put it in the refrigerator at this point and let it cold rise overnight (12-15 hours).
13. Preheat the oven and pans to 500°F
• Don't cheat this step.  The heat is very important in both the oven and pans.  I know, you can often get away with other baking if the oven isn't quite to temp.  Don't try it here.  Give it plenty of time to preheat.
14. Transfer the loaves into the pans
• USE PARCHMENT PAPER!  Cut 2 fairly long strips of parchment paper.  You'll use the long ends as handles to pull the bread free when done.
• Invert the proofing basket/bowl over the parchment and let the dough gently fall onto the paper.
• With a very sharp knife (or a bread lame), score the top to allow the bread to rise correctly.  This is worth doing some additional research on...people get really creative with this!
• Lift the parchment with the dough down into the preheated pans.  Preheated pans.  They're hot...watch your arms!
• Cover the pans with their lids.
• You'll notice here that mine are neither on parchment nor scored.  The dough and I were fighting and tonight, the dough almost won.  Trust me... use parchment.
  
15. Bake!  Finally...
• Bake at 500°F for 20 minutes.
• Turn heat down to 450°F for 10 more minutes.
• Remove the lids and cook at 450°F for 15-25 minutes until beautifully golden brown and they sound hollow when you thump them.
• Use the sides of the parchment paper and a spatula or tongs to remove the bread from the pans.
• Place on a cooling rack and allow to cool completely before slicing.  Waiting is sooooo worth it.  But it's almost impossible.
• Grin like a goofball when you can hear your loaf crackle and sing as it cools.  This seriously made me feel like a rockstar when it did this!

These are the remains of loaf #2.  I really really wish I'd remembered to use parchment...

All-in-all, this was a success.  The bread tastes amazing and I have every intention of trying again.  Just maybe with parchment paper...

Sourdough Bread - Overview

**Warning: I ended up splitting this into a couple of posts.  Sourdough is complicated, but SO worth it.**

Since I started practicing breadmaking about 2 months ago, I've had more success than I'd ever dreamed.  It's been so exciting and has inspired me to get more adventurous.  Which is what led me to want to try Sourdough.  Not just baking the bread, but creating my own Starter!

Last night I prepared the Levain and now today, I'm making my first loaf of Sourdough bread!

I'm a researcher at heart, so I've been reading information and recipes all over the place.  Currently, I'm focusing on Sourdough Bread from The Kitchn but I'm sure over time I'll develop more of my own style.  But my general practice when learning anything new (not just baking), is to start with what someone else has perfected, determine what I like and don't like about the result, and make adjustments as necessary.

Sourdough was daunting to learn.  There was a TON of information to process and understand and "unpack" for a casual, beginning baker.  And it's quite possible that some of this is wrong or at least not complete.  I'll learn and we'll learn together.

The super-high-level overview of making a sourdough loaf is this:

1. Starter
• This is simply flour and water, left out to capture wild yeast.
• This part takes the place of packaged yeast.
• You can purchase it online, or get it from a friend, or make your own!  I made my own which meant I started this bread over a week ago.  Now that I have a starter, I will be able to make this whenever I want, provided I take good care of my starter.  It's a bit like a pet - and a lot of baker's name their starters.
2. Levain
• This step combines a small amount of the starter with some of the flour and water for the full recipe and sits overnight (or for 8-12 hours).
• Because of the nature of wild yeast, it takes longer to work.  Active Dry yeast and Instant yeast from the store are designed to work quickly, while this process is letting things happen naturally.  No rushing this bread, really.
• I put mine together last night.
3. Prepping the dough: proofing, kneading, and forming
• There are many methods here.  I've chosen a variation of the "no knead" idea which includes:
• Autolyse - This step lets the flour hydrate and glutens develop without getting cut up by the salt.  At this point, all the ingredients except the salt and a small amount of water are in the bowl.
• Stretch & Fold - Instead of kneading in a traditional sense, the dough is gently stretched and folded back onto itself in order to develop the gluten gently and not overwork the dough.  It takes TIME - 2.5 hours for this stage alone!
• Proofing baskets/bowls - Because the dough tends to be more sticky/wet than a traditional bread dough, it needs a little help staying put while rising.  It also takes a lot longer to rise, so can lose the shape you spent time creating.  Using bowls, or baskets (bannetons) helps control this stage.
4. Baking
• There are lots of ways to do this.  Each baker I read had differing opinions... it was complicated.
• I decided to stick with what I could do with the equipment I have on hand and that has a chance at producing a loaf I'll enjoy.  If this becomes something I do regularly, I'll invest in a couple of dutch ovens, probably.
• Lots of people use dutch ovens or other covered bakeware.  I happen to have an enamel pot with a lid that is able to be used for this kind of baking (I checked).  For this first attempt, I'll bake it in this.  I might do the second loaf freeform on a sheet pan, since I don't have 2 pots.  Or maybe turn it into a bunch of small mini-loafs or rolls.  We'll see.  Still several hours to go before that decision needs to be made.

So that's the background to what's happening in my kitchen as I type this.  At least one more post tonight, possibly two.  It'll depend on how long it ends up being with the full recipe, instructions, and pictures!  Thanks for hanging out with me in my kitchen while I practice what I'm learning to love!

Current state of my dough, almost done with the S&F phase

Using up special ingredients: Sourdough Starter discard

I don't like wasting things.  It drives me NUTS to see food thrown away, including leftovers.  Sourdough starter is just flour and water - and not a lot of either one, really.  So it's not a lot of money.... but it still kills me to do it.  So I went looking for recipes to use up starter that is supposed to be discarded.

Thankfully, I'm not the first (or the last) to feel this way.  There were lots of options.

This weekend, we're trying the Sourdough Pancakes from Joy the Baker.

Ingredients:
1 cup sourdough starter (discard)
1.5 cups warm water
2.5 cups flour
1 egg
2/3 cup milk
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 Tbsp brown sugar
2 Tbsp vegetable oil

Instructions:

1. The night before:
• Mix starter, water, and flour in a large bowl.
  
• Cover with plastic wrap and a tea towel.  Leave on the counter overnight.
  
• Note: If, like me, you keep your house cool, you can put the bowl in the oven with the light on (produces just enough heat) or preheat it to the lowest temp, turn it off, put the starter inside.
2. The next morning:
• In a separate bowl, mix together the remaining ingredients.
  
• Slowly combine both bowls and whisk together.
  
• Let stand 5 minutes.
  
• Drop onto a hot, greased/buttered griddle and cook for a few minutes.  Flip once to brown the other side.
  
  
3. Enjoy!
• Serve with butter, real maple syrup, berries, etc.

These were light and quick. I got about 24 pancakes using a 1/3 cup measure.  Packaged them up in little containers and now I have a treat for breakfast at work each day (plus this morning's breakfast, of course)!