Floydm's blog

Sourdough photos: Yum.

I had an unmitigated success with my sourdough starter today. Two round loaves of something resembling my rustic bread but with my starter instead of yeast. I pulled the starter out and started feeding it every 12 hours beginning Thursday evening. During that time I kept it in my oven with the light on so that it was in a 80 to 90 degree environment. It seems to require that: without it, I don't even get a doubling in 24 hours. With it I get nearly a tripling in size in about 8 hours.

With the site turning one year old, I decided it was time to finally put together an article on French Bread. Regular readers probably have noticed that while I bake some kind of French Bread (rustic bread, pan sur poolish, etc.) almost every week, I've yet to do an article on it.

I've been meaning to mention that this site is one year old now. Check out the first post. Thank you to everyone who has contributed and participated in the discussions. May your bread always rise!

This weekend:

• Banana bread: good, as always. I haven't baked it since the holidays began. Nice to have again.
• Sourdough batch #1: refrigerated overnight. Great flavor, but too dense. About like a bagel. I still ate two-thirds of the loaf.
• French bread: Awesome. Perfect with the pot of soup I made on a cold, damp day. Pictures and more info to come.
• Sourdough batch #2: I thought I did everything right, but instead of springing in the oven it just sat there.

As I mentioned in my previous post, last night I placed my new sourdough starter in the oven with just the light on to see if staying 80 degrees overnight would give it some pep. It did, having slightly over doubled in size by this morning. I also started a poolish last night so I could do a standard French bread if my starter wasn't looking lively. It too was ready to go this morning. "Hey," I thought, "Since I have both, why don't I try making a yeasted and a sourdough version of the same recipe and compare how they come out?

I've been feeding my starter every 12 hours since Thursday evening. It isn't too lively: I'm getting some growth and bubbles, but nothing close to doubling in size. I went ahead and fed it again this evening. I put it in the oven with just the light bulb on, which keeps it around 80 degrees. We'll see if a slightly warmer environment stimulates it enough that I can bake with it tomorrow. If not, I may cheat and make a sourdough that is spiked with half a teaspoon of yeast, since it *smells* like sourdough.

I tried baking with my starter yesterday but blew it. I left the dough too slack, so it ended up a puddle. I expected it to tighten up as it developed, but it did not significantly. Oh well, I'll try again in a few days!

Today the starter is looking real good. It doubled in size overnight. I'll probably try baking with it tomorrow.

I made pizzas last night using the Neapolitan Denominazione de Origine Controllata crust from American Pie. It is basically the same as the Neo-Neapolitan dough except it totally omits sugar and fats. I meant to make the pizzas the day before but didn't have time, so I just punched the dough down and left it in the fridge a second day. I made a couple of small ones for the kids.