One of the most tastiest and most photographed breads out there is the sourdough. What's not to love about this tangy loaf that's perfect just with butter or as the base of a sandwich? Now home bakers are taking it on, trying to create the perfect bread. All you need is a good starter and a lot of time.
Claire Saffritz, a contributing editor to Bon Appetit Magazine, wrote this interesting article, and how to for yesterday's New York Times Food section. Sourdough is one of the hardest and possible the most difficult of breads. As she states "It's not just flour, water and yeast but time and temperature too." Regular bread making, using an oven, is time consuming, but making sourdough is days consuming. Carve out three days for the whole process. She recommends starting on Friday for fresh from the oven loaves on Sunday. You're also going to need a lot of equipment, from a glass mixing bowl to an Instant read thermometer.Then there's the fancier stuff such as bannetons, bread proofing baskets. a serrated knife and a large Dutch oven. Unlike other breads , sourdough requires parchment paper too. Then there are the ingredients - a mature starter (get it online or from friends and family), white bread flour along with whole grain rye or spelt flour.Then there's rice flour for dusting. Luckily, Stop & Shop and WHole Foods carry the flours - although you can buy all of them on line.
After all this , then there is the process. It's feeding or refreshing your starter on Day One, then letting it sit out at room temperature. A second feeding is needed once the starter doubles in size. Day Two requires mixing the dough and letting it rest, otherwise known as the autolyse process. This will take anywhere from thirty minutes to a couple of hours. The next step is the floater test. Drop a small spoonful into a bowl of room temperature water.It's ready when it floats (along with a dome of sudsy bubbles appearing on the starter's surface. If it sinks, let it sit for another thirty minutes. If it's ready then combine the dough and starter. Use your one hand to mix the dough while the other rotates the bowl. assess the dough and then add salt. It's then mixing and performing what's known as the windowpane test in which some of the dough is stretched and rolled out. It should be membrane thin with light shining through it. Then there's more prep, folding and pre-shaping the dough. The shaping baskets are then prepared with a dusting of white and rice flours combined. The sourdough is then proofed, first outside the fridge and then inside it overnight. Day Three is the actual baking day It's baking it in a Dutch oven at a fiery 500 degrees F. Prepping the dough requires dusting it with flour and gashing it with a knife or razor blade. Halfway through the temp is dropped to 450 F. The result is a crusty, tasty loaf with a tender crumb.
Perfection takes a lot of work. Creating a flawless work is not just a lot of work but time. If you have it, do it. Make that Instagrammable loaf of bread.
Showing posts with label starter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label starter. Show all posts
Thursday, October 3, 2019
Thursday, January 12, 2017
The Rising Of Rye
Rye bread has been around for millennia, providing sustenance to all of Northern Europeans.It is popular here in the States,however a paler version of it. That's all changing, thanks to a new movement
Julia Moskin wrote about it in yesterday's New York Times' Food section. American's are about to get their tastes bud blown away with a return to traditional ryes.These are more like pumpernickel, the color of a chocolate cake with the spiciness of gingerbread.It is a dense, chewy crumb that requires a slow rise in a hot steamy oven to rise. Icelandic bakers put the rye dough underground to be baked in geothermal springs.Norwegians repurposes it, frying it into crisp crackers. American bakers have made rye pound cakes such as the baker at San Francisco's Bar Tartine. Concord Massachusetts Bondir serves rye in stews, with the chef , Jason Bond, gets the rye in bales.Most Americans are used to the Jewish sissal - or caraway rye, a pale yellow..Massachusetts Brown Bread was the colonists attempts at rye , using it after their wheat crop failed.
Rye bread is not for beginner bakers. The Times recipe calls for two to three days of prep along with getting a buttermilk or yogurt starter.There's also getting the rye berries or meal which some groceries have and can also be bought at Amazon.com. The dough is not the usual sticky kind but more like a runny batter.It's an eggless recipe that requires malt syrup or molasses.The loaf pans do have to be very thickly buttered too. An easier version is the recipe for the Jewish one.It's a mix of bread and rye flour,Honey and oil are also added and the whole dough is kneaded with a bread hook.The only labor intensive part is oiling a bowl. The dough is baked in a 450 oven on the lower most rack. Three knife slashes from a paring knife. have to be made across the top. and then a cornstarch glaze is brushed across it to give that nice glaze .
Rye bread is a delicious chew.They may be a bit labor intensive to bake but worth it. Try this ancient grain and it's dark richness.
Julia Moskin wrote about it in yesterday's New York Times' Food section. American's are about to get their tastes bud blown away with a return to traditional ryes.These are more like pumpernickel, the color of a chocolate cake with the spiciness of gingerbread.It is a dense, chewy crumb that requires a slow rise in a hot steamy oven to rise. Icelandic bakers put the rye dough underground to be baked in geothermal springs.Norwegians repurposes it, frying it into crisp crackers. American bakers have made rye pound cakes such as the baker at San Francisco's Bar Tartine. Concord Massachusetts Bondir serves rye in stews, with the chef , Jason Bond, gets the rye in bales.Most Americans are used to the Jewish sissal - or caraway rye, a pale yellow..Massachusetts Brown Bread was the colonists attempts at rye , using it after their wheat crop failed.
Rye bread is not for beginner bakers. The Times recipe calls for two to three days of prep along with getting a buttermilk or yogurt starter.There's also getting the rye berries or meal which some groceries have and can also be bought at Amazon.com. The dough is not the usual sticky kind but more like a runny batter.It's an eggless recipe that requires malt syrup or molasses.The loaf pans do have to be very thickly buttered too. An easier version is the recipe for the Jewish one.It's a mix of bread and rye flour,Honey and oil are also added and the whole dough is kneaded with a bread hook.The only labor intensive part is oiling a bowl. The dough is baked in a 450 oven on the lower most rack. Three knife slashes from a paring knife. have to be made across the top. and then a cornstarch glaze is brushed across it to give that nice glaze .
Rye bread is a delicious chew.They may be a bit labor intensive to bake but worth it. Try this ancient grain and it's dark richness.
Wednesday, March 23, 2016
It Starts With Starter
The best tasting bread starts with a bubbly piece of bacteria. Sourdough is nothing without starter yet it's hard to come by. Home bakers have to inherited it from a family or friend - or so it was thought. The truth is anyone can make their own sourdough starter. The surprise - is isn't just for the bread either.Almost any baked good can have it as a vital ingredient.
Sam Sifton explored and experimented with this wonderful bunch of fermentation in today's New York Times Food section. The idea of using a starter is not new. It's how all home bakers baked bread even as late as a century ago . Many think it's the bread itself, but sourdough actually refers to the process.Most people usually "inherit"it , either from a friend or relative who inherited it from one of their friends or relatives.Some starters go back to the late Forties. However now it can be bought , from farmer's markets to etsy.,the online flea market where people can buy anything homemade. What home bakers do need to know is that a starter is a living being and it should be treated as such As Mr. Sifton suggests think of it as a pet turtle, It needs to be tended to regularly .It needs to be fed , sometimes every two to three hours,if it;s to be used frequently. If it's in the fridge and not being used. then it needs to be tended to every week. Starter also has to be taken out too when fed, usually for one to two hours .An equal mix of water and flour is what keeps the starter alive.
For those home bakers who want to get started with starter, the best bet is acquiring it from someone.. Besides etsy and farmer's markets , it can be bought from Cultures For Health and King Arthur's Flour websites. However starter can be made at home too.It can be as simple as flour and water mixed together , then letting it sit in a covered bowl at room temperature until it bubbles and blooms. The process can be sped up with the addition of grapes as baker Nancy Silverson advised years ago on Julia Child show or with a few ounces of unsweetened pineapple juice according to Peter Reinhart, author of "The Bread Baker's Apprentice." It then has to be fed.. Many obsessive bakers feed theirs daily and even use them daily (along with naming them, William Butler Yeast, Roxanne, and Sky pilot to name a few. Mr. Sifton doesn't believe in naming his livestock as he puts it).The good part about starter is that it can be used for other baked goods. Use it before feeding to make an overnight sponge to be used for pancakes nd waffles.It's also good for pizza crust, giving it depth as pizzeria owner , Anthony Falco's of Roberta's in Brooklyn can attest.It can also be used for rye bread too.
If home baker's are up to the challenge of "owning " starter then they should. It does need tender loving care but it does pay off.There's not only crusty, tasty bread but waffles , pancakes and even sourdough pizza!
Sam Sifton explored and experimented with this wonderful bunch of fermentation in today's New York Times Food section. The idea of using a starter is not new. It's how all home bakers baked bread even as late as a century ago . Many think it's the bread itself, but sourdough actually refers to the process.Most people usually "inherit"it , either from a friend or relative who inherited it from one of their friends or relatives.Some starters go back to the late Forties. However now it can be bought , from farmer's markets to etsy.,the online flea market where people can buy anything homemade. What home bakers do need to know is that a starter is a living being and it should be treated as such As Mr. Sifton suggests think of it as a pet turtle, It needs to be tended to regularly .It needs to be fed , sometimes every two to three hours,if it;s to be used frequently. If it's in the fridge and not being used. then it needs to be tended to every week. Starter also has to be taken out too when fed, usually for one to two hours .An equal mix of water and flour is what keeps the starter alive.
For those home bakers who want to get started with starter, the best bet is acquiring it from someone.. Besides etsy and farmer's markets , it can be bought from Cultures For Health and King Arthur's Flour websites. However starter can be made at home too.It can be as simple as flour and water mixed together , then letting it sit in a covered bowl at room temperature until it bubbles and blooms. The process can be sped up with the addition of grapes as baker Nancy Silverson advised years ago on Julia Child show or with a few ounces of unsweetened pineapple juice according to Peter Reinhart, author of "The Bread Baker's Apprentice." It then has to be fed.. Many obsessive bakers feed theirs daily and even use them daily (along with naming them, William Butler Yeast, Roxanne, and Sky pilot to name a few. Mr. Sifton doesn't believe in naming his livestock as he puts it).The good part about starter is that it can be used for other baked goods. Use it before feeding to make an overnight sponge to be used for pancakes nd waffles.It's also good for pizza crust, giving it depth as pizzeria owner , Anthony Falco's of Roberta's in Brooklyn can attest.It can also be used for rye bread too.
If home baker's are up to the challenge of "owning " starter then they should. It does need tender loving care but it does pay off.There's not only crusty, tasty bread but waffles , pancakes and even sourdough pizza!
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