hmcinorganic's blog

I'm back from Kyoto and in my first week, I've re-awakened my starter and am tonight attempting to make sourdough. I used 5 oz starter (nice and bubbly and active, 100% starter) 10 oz water and 15 oz white flour. The dough is really wet; I couldn't do stretch and folds because it was sticking to everything. So, I folded and kneaded in at least another cup of flour and it is retarding in the fridge under olive oil as we speak. It smells good but I am really out of practice.  I forgot to add salt until it was almost too late, but I sprinkled in about 1-1.5 tsp of salt while kneading.

I am living in Kyoto this year (from August 2011 until July 2012) and we have such a tiny kitchen and no oven.  I really miss baking bread.  I had to give my starter to a friend to hopefully keep alive for me.  

Most of the bread here is pretty bad; white sandwich bread, but there are a lot of small bakeries that make french loaves, and we treat ourselves to them from time to time.  And, of course, they have sweets too :)

this loaf came together GREAT, following my old standard 1,2,3 sourdough bread recipe here but using 1/3 whole wheat flour.  

9 oz starter (rejuvenated after a several week hiatus)

18 oz water

18 oz bread flour + 9 oz whole wheat flour

1 Tbsp salt

I mixed and kneaded for about 2 minutes, then did 2 stretch and folds. The dough behaved very well;  not too wet, and it held its shape.

Made the old standby again.  I really love this bread.  I have a question though.  First, the recipe:

9 oz starter (100% hydration)

9 oz whole wheat flour

9 oz white flour

9 oz bread flour

18 oz water

1 T salt

I mixed it all in my KA for about 5 minutes, then did 2 stretch and folds over an hour.  The dough was VERY wet so I folded in about 1/8 cup flour.  It retarded overnight in the fridge, then one more stretch and fold, divide, preshape.  Rest and rise for about an hour.  Then shaped and pulled taut.

text to come soon, but here are some pictures of my sourdough from october 28th.  They turned out well!  I need a scoring lesson.  any good recommendations on this site?

baguette

boule before cooking.  I'm not really sure how to slash it...

and after

<picture>  not uploading right now...

I made my old standby yesterday and today, 123 sourdough.  The dough was very wet;  I must have either a >100% starter or I mismeasured.  I used only white flour, and I know that that sometimes leads to wetter doughs, but I've made 100% white before and it wasn't a problem.  It was extraordinarily hard to shape and work with.  I made a double batch;  4 loaves.  two rose in small bowls in the fridge overnight and two rose in loaf pans.  Not a lot of oven spring on the "boules" but the loaf pans gave more support and they turned out better.

Not sure that this is going to last long enough to make sandwiches out of...... its good.

I followed the 123 recipe here.

mixed 9-10 oz starter, 18 oz bread flour, 9 oz regular flour, 18 oz water and 1 Tbsp salt (remembered to add salt this time!)

I haven't baked in a while;  super busy at work.  I just made the bread described on this page, modified to not include raisins (no one in my family likes raisins except me).  My 5 year old helped with the measuring for a school math assignment.  It came together easily, and the gluten developed with 2 minutes of kneading, and 3 rounds of stretch and fold over 2 hours.

Tonight I needed a quick loaf for sandwiches and I had a bit of free time, so I made this loaf from Bernard Clayton's new complete book of breads.  After making so much sourdough lately, it was nice to get a completely different smell in the kitchen.  This is a standby recipe;  when I opened the book, this was bookmarked already.  

I've been on vacation and not baking for a while.  I have been keeping my starter going, however.  Last week I made the 1/3 whole wheat 1-2-3 sourdough ... again.  I'm caught in a rut :)  

I forgot the salt though, and had to mix it in after 2 or 3 stretch and folds.  Seemed to work ok though.  Bread was good, but I forgot to take pictures.  I made 4 small baguettes.  Those are just hard to shape;  I need practice.  Scoring was good (I did 3 - 4 lengthwise slashes) but the bread was underproofed.