After bookmarking it more than a year ago, last weekend I finally got round to making Karin's Saatenbrot. It turned out really good and was made extra special by the freshly ground bread spices which I roasted and ground up. Not everyone in the family liked it, though. They thought it too heavy and too strongly flavoured.
This is my version of Pain de Campagne. It took three attempts before I was satisfied with the result. The first two loaves were too sour for my liking. It was only when Josh suggested that I use more starter in my levain build, instead of less, that I finally got the result I wanted. :)
Levain
This was my second attempt at this loaf. Intrigued by David's description of how good it tasted, I just had to give it a try. My first go yielded a flat boule that was very, very sour and quite pale. I let everything go on too long especially the final proof in the fridge. Due to other commitments, it stayed in the fridge for almost 20 hours as opposed to the 12 that David recommended.
I received a copy of Tartine for Christmas last year and have been making the basic country loaf regularly since then. The quantity of dough the recipe makes is perfect for my three 25cm oblong bannetons. I scale the dough to 650 grams a piece and retard in the refrigerator for up to 18 hours. The above loaves were only retarded for 12 hours.
I made this loaf using Josh's process which he outlined in my previous blog post on San Francisco style sourdough. (You will need to scroll down to about the halfway mark to view the post).
Levain Build
I was so taken by Arlo's recent blog post of his Pain de Urban that I knew I had to make it immediately. I highly reccommend this loaf to anyone. Many thanks to Arlo for the recipe and the inspiration. :) Arlo, your original recipe now has a variation. It came about by happy accident when too much water glopped out of the container while I was measuring. Hence I have called it:
Here is a boule I made last weekend that is worth sharing. I had replenished my starter but didn't have enough bread flour on hand to make up my usual dough. I knew if I made a trip to the store, by the time I came back, my starter would be past its peak, so I just made up the difference with the flours I had on hand.
I really liked the flavour of this loaf and it improved throughout the week. Here is the recipe:
This recipe is from The Bread Book by Linda Collister and Anthony Blake and it was the second serious bread book I bought about 17 years ago. It was quite forward thinking for its time as all the recipes include weight measurements (metric and imperial). It is still one of my favourite bread books and it is definitely worth a buy. It has really good photographs.
I have been going through a bit of a baking drought lately, but on Friday lunch refreshed my starter so that I could bake when I got off work in the evening. I hadn't planned on anything, but when I got home and found the starter at its peak, I had to act quickly and there was no time for elaborate planning. Accordingly, I just ad libbed and this is what I did.
100g mature starter @ 100% hydration
250g water
3g diastatic malt
50g rye flour
