I baked David’s “San Francisco Style Sourdough”. I used the formula and procedure from his latest blog entry on the on-going experiment (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/27982/san-franciscostyle-sourdough-bread-two-ways-3252012), except I did not retard the proofed loaves overnight.
Cat and I spent the week of 3/3 through 3/10 on an expedition on the waters and islands around Southern Baja California. It was a glorious trip, with great up-close encounters with marine mammals and other local fauna.
My camera was busy trying to capture some sense of the wonderful natural world we experienced.
I made the Ciabatta from Professor Reinhart’s formula in Bread Baker’s Apprentice today. Easy to make, though I can see where a novice might want to add more flour to the gloppy dough instead of trusting to the magic of gluten. I added a heaping teaspoon of milk powder to soften the crumb. I shaped a pound of dough into four large rolls.
It’s a simple bread. Nice texture and good flavor, but nothing to write home about. I think it would be good for a sandwich roll.
No big experiments or breakthroughs this week. I had a promise to fulfill: my mother-in-law wanted a loaf of sourdough. I made a batch of San Francisco Country Sourdough (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/25402/sf-country-sourdough-–-my-best-ever…not-sure-why) into three half-kilo batards. One served nicely last night as a platform for roast turkey sandwiches and tonight for a side dish with white bean soup. One for M-I-L. And one for the freezer.
Over the past couple weeks, I’ve been on a roll….Well, actually, sandwich fillings have been on a roll literally. I’ve been making rolls, but that’s not a figure of speech of which I am aware. I suppose I could say I’ve been roll-playing. Anyway…enough tropes.
My wife likes her sourdough sour. And a happy wife is better than the alternative. Not that I dislike sour sourdough. Indeed, for some purposes (along side a salad, or as toast, or as an appetizer with cheese, or….), I like my sourdough sour, too.
After all the heavy food, sweets and rich baked goods at holiday time, I decided to bake some nice healthy loaves of bread and make some soup with local North Coast seafood. OK, the chowder has a good dose of cream in it, but I used a recipe without bacon, so it’s dietetic compared to my usual.
