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summer sourdough bread

It’s TOO HOT TO RUN THE OVEN!

NO KIDDING , but who can go too long without a loaf of fresh bread, during the summer unless you have a very well air conditioned kitchen, adding more heat to the house isn’t a good idea and the temperature may not dip that much during the evening hours.

What have I got to lose by trying baking bread in a …………. crock pot ?

So it goes like this , I’ll skip over the dough part, just prep your favorite sourdough recipe, form up the loaf in a well greased crock of your crock pot. the amount will be proportional to the size of your pot. mine was the average size old 2 temperature crock pot. Now in a warm non air conditioned room the dough set overnight covered till it became a nice bubbly mass.

The  crock pot can be located in an non air conditioned room or even outside when baking to minimize the heat.

Now set the cover ajar, as I’ve learned from experience that fully covered, steam will form and drip back into the loaf making for a much too wet product, set it on high heat. Those with the fancy digital types will have to go by their best guess as to temperature.

Check back in about 50 minutes or so. The bottom should form a nice golden crust as to the sides as well.

Having the crock well greased, using a rack or plate over the crock, flip it.

Now carefully place the loaf back in the crock crispy side up, for another baking session about 45 minutes or so, your time will vary depending on the temperatures of the pot settings. Again the cover is ajar to retain some of the heat and vent the moisture.

Sourdough being a rather moist dough might still be not cooked through as I noticed in past attempts. so after the second baking continued I down shifted to the low heat setting and let her bake another 45 minutes or so.

The result is now golden brown on both the top and bottom, don’t expect the same results that  would have resulted  in a regular oven. It’s kind of a flat, puck style look..

…. but the taste is the same and sourdough texture is there.

By the way you can try this with traditional dough recipes also.

 

 

 

 

Sourdough crackers

Making crackers again, a simple dough recipe from zero waste chef. Sourdough crackers

The skill I am accomplishing here is the uniformity of the thickness of the dough. As it makes a big difference in the finished product, all the crackers bake the same and finish at the same time. Too thin and they brown to very thin crispy wafers. Too thick, a chewy not crispy texture. This will also test the resolve of the evenness heat in your oven. Rotating the racks and baking at various levels can accomplish an even baking. I also would like to convert the recipe to weight measurements for a more precise repeatability. The result though of this recipe is a very favorable cracker either alone or with a pate or fruit spread or dip. So easy once the dough is rolled out, you’ll find yourself wondering why to buy a box of crackers.

I’ve made a couple of substitutions to the basic recipe:

2/3 cup sourdough starter

3 heaping teaspoons of coconut oil (or olive oil)

3/4 cup whole wheat flour (I used all-purpose which may effect the quickness of baking and color)

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

extra coarse salt for topping (omitted so far, although I would try sesame seeds)

Combine the wet ingredients in a bowl (starter and oil) add to the dry ingredients.

I let the dough hook do all the work and made slight adjustments adding flour for a smooth dough.

Let it rest for about 6 hours, mine rose slightly

With a serrated wheel cutter used for ravoli, I made rectangular crackers.

The dough with the oil content is extremely durable and stretchable, easy to roll and cut.

Second batch : double recipe, this one the dough was slightly wetter, ended rolling the dough on the cookie sheets and added docking the dough with a fork. Tasty ! I ate most of the overbaked uneven crackers. These were larger rectangles than the first batch with 2 circular samples.

Malted barley sourdough bread

Linking through several gravitars, lead me this site , The Zero Waste Chef(Link)https://zerowastechef.com/2015/09/17/sourdough-bread/

Recent reading on sourdough technics gave way to this loaf. Milling grains for beer, or more accurately crushing malted barley, I tightened up the Victoria mill for a fine grind of barley , that being 120 caramel/crystal malt. This mix will lead to a dark gold color as the barley is roasted, 120 being the color scale measurment of the malt. Just as a side note, this is how your red, porters and stout beers account for their color. The dark roasted grains may be an aquired taste.

https://www.morebeer.com/products/briess-caramel-120l-malt.html

Now I didn’t get the exact measurement of barley in addition to the 1 kg all purpose flour , probably around 1/2 cup, the new technics were to age the soughdough starter AND what’s know as a leven by soaking the grains, the all purpose flour, with water. Sour dough bread is a non yeast bread relying on the starter to provide the fermentation. 

OK, if time is on your side, as this is a long process, that being, the proofing, and temperature plays into the completion of the bread. Experience is the best teacher in this type of baking. My process is harvesting some starter from the crock in the fridge to start, feeding the crock ,before returning into cold storage. 

Now I fed the starter with the barley flour and water and prepared the leven as well. The very active starter didn’t take long to bubble and from prior failed proof of concepts, ( that’s a literal “proof”) with the additive of barley, an overnight soak sounds like a good idea for fussy grains like whole wheat and fresh ground barley malt who seem to take their time absorbing liquids.

The sourdough barley malt starter.

After an overnight stay, Now it’s a simple matter of mixing the starter and the leven. You can see the roasted barley bits in the dough.

Runny very hydrated dough , pre globular !

It’s Alive ! The organism starts to grow and pick up a cohesive texture, turn every hour or so, I find that tilting the bowl to the horizontal and utility a spatula dipped in water will easily fold the entity.

I used the floured towel and bowl method to nest the slow ferment the globular organism.

Several points to consider, the dough stuck to the towel when moved to the Dutch oven, being a pottery one versus cast iron with the bumpy top as result. Internal temp at the finish is 200 degrees Fahrenheit.  The next loaf will be either a lower oven temp or less cover off baking time. 

Several hours later, in the Dutch oven, the result.

A dark crust, crunchy right from the oven the apparent dark grains has a part to play in the finish color.

As apparent by the white dough spots (I split the main ferment into 2 bowls) the leven and starter did not fully mix in some areas, the dough was mixed in kitchen aid bowls and had a flour ball at the bottom, I just let it go. A marble loaf possible using 2 different color dough. The crumb airy and light not like other sours that I have baked that were the dense variety. (Small green fleck is from broccoli 🙂

One trait I notice with the sour ferments is that the crumb has a slight rubbery texture even though no oils were added, not like a slightly grainy finish from yeast/all purpose flour mixes or those with semolina additions.

“The toast test” , nice caramelisation at the edge, tender crunch. I need to improve storage as a plastic bag storage yielded a soft crust the next day. (Actually broiled both sides)

One other ferment  was placed stasis refrigeration, warming up to be nest fermented and baked. 

Taste is a earthy barley background clinging dark malt aftertaste. Do you taste your ingredients? That’s how to become familiar with the different flavours. Taste and smell the flours and grains that you use in recipes. Always have some ferment going on in the house. Fit in the mixing , fermentation, and baking to your schedule and it will become an aquired skill. 

breakfast,sourdough crumpets with raspberry and apple jam

Hmmm…. What’s for breakfast ??? Time to use some of the starter in the fridge and the the cold weather warrants , and the fact there’s no more jam or jelly, to use some of the raspberry frozen harvest .
Put the frozen raspberries in a sauce pan over low heat.

add a small amount of lemon juice. A diced apple was added, a #4152 Macintosh , with the skin.

now, add some sugar to your liking, this allows you to tailor the sweetness , I like mine slightly tart not over sweet, also you can use sweeteners of your choice, like some honey.

cook the jam till it starts to thicken, watch out for a boil over, oops ! Take a small amount of the jam over time and put it on a plate. Put the plate in the freezer to rapid cool to gauge the density of the jam. Thick enough ?

mix up a quick batch of batter for crumpets, I have previously posted a recipe for crumpets so I won’t be repetitive, this one used sourdough starter as a base with flour sugar salt and an egg, with some butter mixed together. Also just a pinch of yeast after I warmed up the starter from the fridge. It didn’t take long for it to bubble up a bit. The rest is in the photos….

time to peruse some of the many gardening catalogs I recently received, must have signed up for many as from just before Christmas till now still receiving many catalogs, I’ll list them on a future blog. BTW it’s close to 1 pm, a sleep in vacation day! Where’s the coffee!!!!