This was developed from a list of ingredients lifted from the display case at Arizmendi Bakery, in San Francisco. I consulted a few other similar recipes to help out with proportions. The technique is basically a stretch-and-fold approach I lifted from some Tartine recipe in a magazine.
Levain
I posted an earlier version of this recipe, but I've refined it and it's pretty much awesome now. Makes 6 large muffins.
Preheat oven to 425F
Combine in large bowl:
Combine and whisk together in small bowl:
I am on a quest to duplicate, or at least create a reasonable facsimile, of the Arizmendi/Cheese Board corn-blueberry muffins. I have The Cheese Board Collective Works which does not contain this recipe, to my irritation, but which can serve as a useful guide! My most recent attempt is documented here:
Preheat oven to 425. Thoroughly oil or butter a muffin tin. This makes 6 large or 9 medium muffins.
Mix dry ingredients in a bowl:
I am very pleased with my oven spring and grigne and all that business, so here's a new blog post! This is a trifle underproofed, but I rather like the dramatic look of the thing.
Poolish:
Let sit out overnight (8-12 hours, more if it's cooler, less if it's warmer)
Dough:
This is the next in a series of blog posts, regarding my quest to reproduce Acme Bakery's Walnut Levain. See:
and
I think I'm pretty much there. My loaf is quite large now, because we like it. There are two preferments, one "old dough" (yeast raised) and one a sour sponge for flavor. The loaf itself is basically yeast raised.
Day 0, Evening
Sour Sponge:
We broke up a jack-o-lantern for soup the other day (just a regular pumpkin, not a sugar-pie or anything, not a pumpkin especially for eating but of course edible). Had a couple cups of mashed baked pumpkin left over, so I thought I'd see what happened when I put it in bread. I wasn't expecting much flavor, since the regular pumpkins just don't have that much. The answer, in short, was: Eh, it's bread. Sort of moist.
The long answer:
Evening of Day 0:
No pictures, I am just recording this recipe here for my own use, really, but feel free to try it out! This is my first effort at recreating a bread my father made a lot when I was young. It's not wildly far off, but needs some work.
Evening of Day 0
Make a poolish: 1 cup warm water, a pinch of yeast, 1 cup bread flour. Mix, let stand out (covered) overnight.
Morning of Day 1
The poolish should be active, inflated, and bubbly. If not, wait until it is.
This is a variation on Joe Ortiz' recipe in The Village Baker (as indeed so many of my breads are).
Basically I've sourdoughed it up, and subbed in hot cereal for rye meal.
Evening of Day 0
Mix 1 cup rye flour with 3/4 cup warm water, and a tablespoon or so of active liquid starter ("sufficient" starter).
This basically Joe Ortiz' idea. The underlying loaf is a challah (a not terribly sweet, not terribly rich challah, just a nice one). I made up his recipe last night, which produces 2.5 pounds of dough (6 cups of flour, to give you an idea of how much dough). I think you could use any challah or brioche, but I do like the 'not too sweet, not too rich' part. If you go too sweet or too rich, I think you just get a giant cinnamon roll (not that this is a bad thing..)
This is a new bake of the recipe I discussed in this post.
Minor chages:
The main difference is that I accidently added about 1 cup too much water, so:
