Lazy Loafer's blog

As I said when I issued the 123 challenge, I needed an easy dough that I could use to test out new ingredients and compare techniques, etc. So to that end, I decided the other day to make dough for two 123 loaves. I was going to mix them together, then divide them and bulk ferment one in the fridge overnight, then shape and bake the next day, while the other was to be bulk fermented for a few hours, then shaped and proofed in the fridge overnight.

Okay, this was fun! Inspired by some of the suggestions on the 123 challenge (notably Mini Oven's question about using Coca Cola in bread), I decided to try something completely different. This is a 123 bread but, instead of using 100 grams of fresh 'sourdough' starter I made a poolish with 50 grams of root beer, 50 grams of bread flour and a pinch (1/16th tsp) of dry yeast. It looked and smelled nice. I used a 'natural' root beer without a lot of chemicals.

I issued myself a challenge (posted here in the Challenge forum) to see what kind of fun I could have with a simple 123 method sourdough. In other words, 1 part fresh starter, 2 parts water (or other liquid) and 3 parts flour. Also, a customer had asked me to create a 'sweet' version of my Three Friends Levain (Tom[ato], Olive and Rosemary) that she could have with peanut butter and jam. So, a double challenge!

Having decided that I'm tired of trying to work with sloppy wet doughs, particularly in large batches, I've revised several of the recipes I use so that the overall dough hydration is in the range of 70% to 72%. This is my first experiment with the Harvest bread from FWSY, and it's a keeper!

Well, I nearly ruined a large bake (eleven loaves) of my best deli-style rye bread today, simply by following the recipe instead of my own smarts. I've baked this bread many times (I've got two customers who absolutely love it and order large batches fairly regularly).

Made another big batch of Rye Sourdough today (10 loaves for two customers), and it thankfully turned out quite lovely. However, I was so glad I've got enough bread baking under my belt to adjust as I went along, because there were a few things that needed extra attention this time!

It must be spring - I have garlic scapes in the garden! Of course, that inspired this week's test loaf - Roasted garlic scape and Asiago cheese levain. The scapes were chopped and roasted with a little EVOO for about 15 minutes in a covered dish at 400F. I baked demi-loaves (scaled around 400 grams) because this is a specialty bread, not an everyday kind of bread. Each loaf had about 2 Tbsp each of chopped, roasted scapes and shredded cheese.

I'm blessed in that I have a husband who not only washes dishes, but also makes excellent beer and wine. A couple of days ago he was mopping up the 'warm' cupboard after his beer primary foamed over. I handed him a small bowl and spoon and asked him to skim some foam of the top of the beer for me - real barm!

After sitting for an hour or two the bowl of barm had subsided to a murky, foamy puddle of about 2 tablespoons in the bottom of the bowl. Then the adventure began...

For some time now I've been baking an Ale & Yeast Poolish bread, originally from Richard Bertinet's "Crust". I make it with my husband's home-brewed light hoppy ale, and it is a customer favourite (and family & friends too). It's a delightful all-purpose bread, good for sandwiches, toast, with soup or cheese or whatever. And it is probably the best-behaved dough I've ever worked with. It seems infallible!

Once again, I'm experimenting with baking high hydration sourdoughs in loaf pans. This time I did the Country Blonde from FWSY. I did it mostly to make customers happy (some of whom, for some reason, find it difficult to cope with slicing a boule), but I also wanted to make it easier for me! It's not bad shaping and then transferring a very wet dough when you're doing one loaf at a time, but when I'm trying to cope with a large puddle of dough for 8 loaves, it's just too much trouble!