leslieruf's blog

Came across this recipe by Teresa Greenway.  although it is a white loaf it was delicious.  Double hydration worked easily and dough was fairly firm and easy to shape at 68% hydration.  Overnight retard as per recipe, only needed hour and half to proof then baked. Have no DO so steamed up oven well and happy with the result.  Will make this again for sure - just wanted to keep on eating it!

Crumb shot of small boule

 and I learnt a huge amount today. Decided to make 100% hydration Bread recipe as posted by TigerX on 3rd March. I must admit I nearly didn't carry on when I twigged that it is a 100% hydration starter and dough! Without method to follow I set out to make this bread doing what I thought would work.

The target yesterday was to redo this grain loaf (Multigrain sourdough based on Rose Levy Barenbaum's 10 grain  torpedo) and try to do it better , including the suggestions by several other TFL folk.  Here's how it turned out - 

The Shaped loaf just before slashing (i had issues with shaping)

after baking with steam at 225oC

Decided it was time to have a go at using sourdough only in my favourite yeasted bread.  

the recipe (From Rose levy Berambaum's Bread Bible) uses white bread flour but I chose to use a little whole wheat in the mix.

Grain soaker - 236 gm mixed grains,113 gm hot water,9 gm salt soaked overnight 

final dough

237 gm bread flour

65 gm whole wheat flour

12 gm gluten

153 gm water

12 gm honey

Levain - 85 gm 125% hydration

Today I used my rye starter (converted from white mother) and decided to make a batard.  Decided to slightly underproof, added extra steam a la dabrownman (pyrex with rolled cloth steaming) in addition to my normal steam pan.  I watched in amazement as it cooked! the steam obviously made the rise much better!!! I have NEVER made a batard this good.  I am over the moon!  and very happy with the crumb.

was to have a go at a basic sourdough using formula I read on TFL - 1 part starter, 2 parts water, 3 parts flour with 2% salt.  I wanted a basic white loaf I could slice and freeze.  Made the liquid levain from my firm starter last night and used almost all of it to get 1 loaf and a boule.  This was the wettest dough I have ever tried so I did lots of stretch and folds over the early part of bulk fermentation time then left it much longer to ferment on the kitchen bench at about 25oC.   Am happy with results  as I had wondered how it would ever hold its shape.

Revisited this recipe which was posted on TFL by Dolf I believe.  I substituted 50:50 wholewheat:bread flour as I cant find white wholewheat flour.  I also reduced honey a little.  Very happy how it turned out. First time I have rolled top of loaf in grain too. 

After two years of trying (and failing) to make various sourdough starters I have finally succeeded!  I used Maggie Glezer's firm sourdough starter (from zolablue's post).  I started in September and it was a little slow, then a family member got very sick so I just put it in the refrigerator for probably 5 weeks before getting it going about 10 days ago.  I managed to get it to double, then treble in size in 24 hours but remained frustrated that I couldn't do it in 8 hours.