naturaleigh's blog

I started my first yeast water culture last weekend with a mix of dried fruit (raisins, dates and apricots...mostly raisins).  I didn't really know what to expect.  After four days, it looked like most of the fruit was floating and I had good fizz.  Some of the larger pieces of apricots and dates were still on the bottom but I had read that was to be expected (and made sense).  The 'test' starter was mixed up that evening and left in the cold oven with the light on over night.  It had nice activity by morning, having nearly tripled, so I mixed up a full le

Tinkered with my Everyday Sourdough recipe by adding some freshly milled Kamut as well as incorporating some soaked Kamut flakes.  I was fairly happy with how this turned out given the fact that I let this dough go a bit too far during bulk ferment--trying to cook dinner while keeping an eye on fermenting dough continues to trip me up here and there.  During pre-bake research, I did note that several people stated Kamut tends to ferment quickly...wish I had remembered that last night during the bulk.  It stuck to the banneton on one side, just a bit. Sigh...

I strayed from my 'usual' bakes this weekend and had some fun experimenting with some new recipes.  My jumping off point was a post for a sourdough loaf I saw a month or so ago on Breadtopia that used blue cornmeal.  That recipe called for freshly milled corn, which I didn't have, but I did have blue cornmeal in the freezer (which makes superior cornbread BTW). 

This was an experiment with walnuts and some purple barley that I had on hand.  I modified my everyday loaf to incorporate the nuts and soaked barley during lamination (after an initial 2 S&Fs).  Although I nearly let the fermentation get away from me while busy cooking dinner last night, I'm happy with the crumb all things considered, not the least of which was the weight of the walnuts.  The areas of the crumb that have more purple are actually from the barley and not the walnuts (since those got toasted first).  The flavor is really nice and the crumb is quit

After requesting and receiving some nice feedback last time, I applied some good tips with, I think, better results in crumb and flavor.  Many thanks to trailrunner and JonJ! 

With the cooler weather I was tempted to experiment a bit with adding some dried fruit and nuts to my basic everyday sourdough loaf (with the addition of some honey).  If it turned out well, I planned on upping the whole wheat percentage on a subsequent bake (next week maybe). 

I've posted before about using a tiny amount of commercial organic yeast in my sourdough bread recipes, and got some good feedback and information on that post.  I've continued to tweak my methods and have arrived at what I think is a happy compromise, making the most of the benefits of both sources of yeast in the same recipe.  I'm just using a pinch of organic yeast in my everyday sourdough recipe, and have probably baked some of the best bread I've ever made, even with skipping an autolyze and pre-shape steps.  I plan on trying this method next with a higher percentage of