Lucy’s Latest SFSD Version for St Patrick’s Day – the best one yet!
Yesterday was one of our favorite days of the year- St Paddy’s Day. Even though part of my family came from Cork - the home of Beamish Beer and where Jameson’s rule, everyone can be Irish for a day. They say that God created Guinness so that the Irish wouldn’t take over the world but for one day they do! I hope all of you enjoyed the day as an Irishman won the Player’s Golf Championship – Rory MclIroy. If an Irish American couldn’t win it, at least an Irishman did …… he is only 29 years old and going into the golf hall of fame for sure!
It hits the basket before the retard
Lucy and I love the SD brown SD bread from Ballymaloe’s famous cooking school, made with Beamish Stout, but the girls prefer their SD to be on the white side and they always win out when it comes to bread for smoked corned beef and bacon infused cabbage sandwiches – the must have St Patrick’s Day fare along with Colcannon and carrots – and Fairy Cakes.
90% proof
This bread was just perfect for the SCB sandwiches especially when slathered with homemade Dijon mustard that has been mellowing in the fridge for months just for this long-awaited day. It was an easy enough recipe, at least for Lucy, because the girls don’t like stuff added into their bread ether. The 12% fresh milled, whole grain flour, made up of red and white wheat, oat and rye in equal amounts with all of it in the 100% hydration levain, was made with 2.4% NMNF rye starter. The whole grain levain was then retarded for 24 hours after it doubled.
The dough flour was made up of 4% each sprouted white durum and sprouted white spelt from Bob‘s Red Mill, 8% LaFama AP and 72% Artisan Bread Flour from Bob’s Red Mill. The dough flour was autolyzed for 30 minutes with enough water to get the hydration up to 75% with the pink Himalayan sea salt sprinkled on top. Then another 5% water was sprinkled over the salt getting the hydration up to 80% overall.
Lid comes off
The salt was mixed in with a spoon before the levain was added and mixed in roughly. Then the first of 3 slap and folds commenced with 125 slaps followed by 2o and 10. Even though this was 80% hydration and only 12% whole grains this one really came together nicely and it wasn’t slack enough to do any Sleeping Ferret folds after the slapping around it took. So, we did 3 sets of stretch and folds from the compass points.
Then we shaped it into a squat oval and plopped it into a rice floured short oval basket and then bagged it into a plastic grocery bag and into the fridge it went for 8 hours of cold 38 F retard. We went for a shaped retard because we knew St Paddy’s day would be hectic and we wanted to do as little as possible the next morning – plus we figured that the dough would not over proof in the fridge as we were sleeping in 8 short hours instead of our usual 12 hours.
Sure enough the dough was only 80% proofed in the morning, so we let it sit on the counter for an hour before starting up the oven with the combo cooker inside to it’s 500 F preheat. It was 80 F yesterday but much cooler in the morning, so it sat on the counter for 2 hours to get to 90% proof - perfect for a white bread like this one.
We unmolded it onto parchment on a peel and slashed it twice long ways and into the combo cooker it went without being spritzed because Lucy forgot to do it even with the bottle right there in front of her big nose! After 20 minutes of steaming with the lid on at 450 F, the lid came off for 6 minutes of convection beat at 425 F when we took it off the bottom of the CC to finish baking on the stone so it wouldn’t burn the bottom of the bread.
You want to wrap your brisket right as it is coming put of the stall ,around 170 F, and then continue cooking to 200 -205 F. Then put it in a cooler covered in towels for 2 hours and let it rest and get to 140 F before slicing and serving.
After another 10 minutes of dry, swirling heat the bread was nicely browned and read 210 F on the instant read thermometer and thumped like a drum too. It had some small blisters and it sprang and bloomed well enough. My daughter was finishing up the bacon and butter infused cabbage when I sliced the bread and she tore off a piece claiming it will be really good with some mustard on it. It was nicely open too, but not monstrously so as some high hydration white breads can be.
She was wrong - It was really good with nothing on it! The flavor was fantastic, a good base sour and the tang that all fine SFSD breads should have along with the wonderful flavor of a 6 grain bread too! Lucy said she would put this bread up against any SFSD style bread any time any day. The smoked corned beef was also really nice making for one fine meal for sure.
Trees from the 1999 Millennium Series
And you know that Lucy says never forget the salad
Comments
"A chorus of 'yums' went 'round the table."
Everything looks delicious, dbm!
David
The food was good and bread was enjoyed by all - Now Lucy needs to do a low hydration one! Happy baking David
You sure like to cater to your girls with all those nice “white” loaves! Lucky them!
I know which side my bread is buttered on! I sure tastes really good especially the and day when the flavor really bloomed. You would like it, Happy baking Danni
We were wondering when one of her signature bakes would grace TLF again. It's been too long but looks like it was worth the wait. Perfect crust and crumb in this one and it's just perfecto with that evil looking corned beef. Nothing beats a smoked piece of meat in my book ?. I haven't had a chance to bake much the last couple of weeks with my birthday and then my wife's but I'm baking off a loaf tonight hopefully. I don't get home from work unti 8pm so it's a struggle to bake during the week but I'm running out of bread ?.
Happy Baking and cooking to you and Queen Lucy from her East Coast family!
with home made mustard, bacon cabbage and home made Dijon mustard for days now and have run out of cabbage so I have to make some more because there is still plenty of bread and some corned beef left!
The birds are eating the tomatoes as soon as they turn red! I need to get a cat to protect them!
I'm glad I haven;t gotten home from work at 8 PM for 10 years but someone has to do it! My wife wanted t know why I didn't bake her another Pullman loaf and I said this was better and now she sort of agrees. Can't wait to see your next one Ian. Lucy sends her best to the LI Pack and is grateful for mid 70's weather this week.
Happy baking Ian
I was starting to wonder if Lucy still remembered how to bake a high hydration free-form loaf. Well, obviously she hasn't lost a beat! This SFSD loaf is awesome that it makes me consider baking my own version as well. Since I've never had it, I might as well make an extra sour white loaf with some sprouted grains and call it SFSD anyway :)
And guess what? I've not tasted corned beef either... However, considering my liking for smoked meat, cured meat and all kinds of processed meat (no, I'm not proud of that), there's no chance I wouldn't like it. Everything looks good to me but the dish capturing my attention the most is the butter and bacon infused cabbage. I can totally imagine how delicious the sweet cabbage is with butter and savory bacon!
Btw, don't be too hard on Lucy... I happen to know someone else who would also forget about spritzing the dough, even with the bottle right in front of her nose :)