I found out today that baking Soda is not baking powder, it’s bicarbonate of soda. Oops, I’ve been making my english muffins with the wrong thing. I’ll use bicarb next time and see whether I can spot the difference. That got me thinking…I can appreciate that an “english muffin” is so called in the U.S. to differentiate between the cakey muffin, but we english don’t call cakey muffins “american muffins”, yet don’t get muddled, but I guess the context is all important.
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My leaven hasn’t been in the fridge for quite some time now, and it’s wonderfully active. It makes me wonder if I’ll ever need commercial yeast again. The trouble with this is that it has become a challenge to bake more and more, and not waste any of the leaven. I will have to steel myself and put some in the fridge, just for a bit of respite. My sourdough, however, is definitely an “it”, unlike others who have taken to calling it “him” (what name though, I wonder?). In his book Bread Matters, Andrew Whitley makes a lovely comment about potential problems surrounding anthropomorphism and leaven, and muses that the guilt some people feel about it could result in a psychotherapist doing a roaring trade in sourdough counselling. Hmmm… Today I’ve been doing sourdough muffins and have some mixed flour mini-baguettes proving in the home made couche made with some upholstery linen.
I begrudge paying the price some places want for what is effectively a heavier teatowel, so made four myself from a metre of linen (just under £10, so £2.50 each). It’s possibly a little bit stiffer than I’d like, but I’m hoping it will wear in with use.
Same sourdough recipe, but I used more rye starter (220g rye: 220g wheat) this time, as an experiment. The taste is just perceptible, to me, but hardly there and it has affected the colour a bit. I like them! If anybody is worried about baking bagels because it sounds a bit complicated with all the poaching etc., then honestly don’t be. It is a doddle once you’ve done it a couple of times. I can’t imagine buying shop ones ever again.  Rye+wheat starter bagels My order from Shipton mill arrived today. I haven’t used their flour before: my normal shop stocks Dove’s Farm and some Bacheldre, but I wanted to try some french baguette flour. It’s not something I’ve seen at any shops I use in my neck of the woods, so online ordering seemed ideal. Unfortunately, unless you are purchasing more than 24kg online, the delivery charge gets added to the order. Hardly worth just buying 1 or 2 kg, then? So I ended up with lots of other goodies to play with (not 24kg, though!). While I was kneading the very stiff bagel dough yesterday, I had a flashback to when I first started baking my own bread, as a student in Manchester, in the 1980s. The recipe was from a book bought from Blackstones books, near Piccadilli. The bread did taste very nice, but was as solid and heavy as a house brick. My hubby has since suggested that I was only baking it so that it could be innocently carried and potentially used as a defensive weapon by a female student living in Moss Side. I still have the book today: Laurel’s Kitchen, and checked out the recipe, for basic wholegrain bread. It’s 2.5 cups water to 6 cups whole wheat flour. By the time I’d dusted it liberally with flour, as I used to before I “saw the light”, that would be less than 40% hydration! No wonder it was so heavy. I don’t have any urge to try and make it again, not even for old time’s sake, though I suppose if I needed the odd house brick… Trying an all sour-dough recipe this time, based on a recipe as posted on the Dan Lepard forum by Dom. 440g starter at 100% hydration* * I used 350g wheat + 90g rye, as I didn’t quite have enough ready of just wheat. <edited: I ‘ve added a slight bit more water as the stiffer dough was hard to shape without getting “creases”.> Mix then knead for around 5 mins. Rest for 2-4 hours. Divide into 12 100g balls, and shape. Cover with baking paper and leave to prove for around 3 hrs in a cool kitchen. Poach in simmering water with 1tsp bicarbonate of soda for 30 secs each side. Drain then sprinkle on topping, as required. Bake at 200C for 20 mins.  bagels This is a fairly stiff dough, less hydration than my first batch, but wasn’t difficult to knead by hand, and no mixer or dough hook to clean! It was very easy, and I was really pleased with the result, though haven’t actually tasted them myself, yet. The rest of my family managed to eat four between them before I could get some photos, so they must be half decent. The one topping was a mix of linseed, sesame and nigella/kalonji (as I couldn’t find the poppy seeds). This made it very slightly onion-y, to my taste, which was quite nice. Posting this one to the Wild Yeast YeastSpotting archive, as it turned out so well. They still floated at the poaching stage, but the crumb looked denser than my last effort. I’ll be doing these again before too long as they are great for lunch boxes. Recently, I’ve been using the recipe from Andrew Whitley’s Bread Matters for my sourdough bread. However, for a change, thought I’d have a go at the recipe in Richard Bertinet’s Crust book. I didn’t have any spelt left (typical, I’ve had some in the cupboard for ages, use it all, then a recipe comes along which calls for it), so rye flour was substituted instead. Also, my leaven (ferment, as it’s called in Crust) is currently at 100% hydration, whereas the Crust book uses only 50% (unless I’m reading it wrong, seems a bit dry?). My recipe got adjusted with more levain and less water to allow for this. The proving period was much longer than my normal recipe: a monster 16-18 hours overnight at a suggested 17-18 deg. C. My kitchen was only just over 18 when I left it and went to bed last night, and the heating was off by then so it would have only got colder. It still looked a bit over-proved to what I’m used to only 12 hours later at 10.30 am, so I chickened out of leaving it for another 4 hours and baked it then. First problem was that it was well and truly glued to the linen in my proving baskets. This isn’t normal, though I usually use rye flour to dust, not wheat. It did have a fairly tough skin on it by then, so I managed to tease it out. Slashing it wasn’t exactly easy: it kept dragging and had so many wrinkles from the indignities of being ripped from its overnight bed. The results are shown below: my son clearly likes it as he’d managed to polish off nearly half a loaf by the time we’d got back from a trip to buy some clothes with my daughter (admittedly not exactly a quick task).  sourdough loaves formula was: 533g white leaven/ferment at 100% hydration 508g water 700g dove’s farm strong white flour 90g rye flour 20g salt The dough was surprisingly stiff to work, given that I calculate that at around 73% hydration. Out of interest, I’ll compare the recipe’s proportions with my normal one at some time. I’d be wary of letting it prove so long again, and definitely use more flour in my baskets. It was quite late in the day, but some bread was needed for the lunch boxes, so I was planning on starting some baguettes then retarding them overnight in the fridge for baking first thing. The recipe was for autolyse method baguettes from the R.Bertinet Crust book. I’d done these a couple of times and my son reckons it’s the best bread I’ve made yet. The first bit calls for 950g strong white flour + 50g dark rye + 720g water to mix and autolyse for 30 mins. I like autolysing as it’s a very posh name for mixing + leaving for a while so you can nip off and have a glass of wine. I had a fair bit of rye leaven available, and substituted the 50g rye for 85g starter and cut the water back by 35g as the starter was 70% hydrated. I figured that it wouldn’t make that much of a difference as it was only for 30 mins, right? Wrong. Unfortunately, the glass of wine turned into half a bottle and feet up on the sofa watching a chick flick. By the time the film was over and the dough remembered, it was way too late to get to the stage where the baguettes could go into the fridge. Cue frantic searching of the internet to see whether autolysing could be overnight. Found a few references that indicated it could, so abandoned my dough to an extended rest. Next day, the dough had started to ferment. Drat, I’d forgotten about the starter. My starter must be pretty darned active to ferment from that small percentage in a very cold kitchen. Decided to change this recipe into sourdough baguettes without yeast, as an experiment. so, we have 1710g semi fermented super-autolysed wheat + rye mix as the “starter”. add 150g more rye starter (70% hydration: I have a lot of this spare!) + 300g wheat starter (50% hydration, I was going to use this in the original recipe, also stored overnight, by now) +600g flour (dove’s farm strong white) +350g water I made that around 70% hydration, roughly. It was very sticky to knead, and very heavy, too (over 3kg)! Added 30g salt after around 5 minutes kneading, which made it a bit easier. Left it to bulk prove for around 4.5hours, with folding after 2, then 1 hour. It definitely didn’t need any extra commercial yeast. Chopped it up into enough for 12 lots of 150g mini-baguettes + 2 smallish loaves, + 2 pizza bases. (I need a bigger freezer!) Shaped, proved and baked as normal. The results were pretty good, considering it was more by luck than design. I will try something similar again, but maybe not quite as much dough…  lots of bread  Not bad slashes  close-up of crumb Unlike Wild Yeast Susan, I am not a morning person. Still, I was up bright and early (well, 7:30) to bake so that my darling children could have fresh bagels for their lunch. Switch oven on to warm up. Put kettle on for tea. Put kettle on again for poaching water. Took one tray of bagels out of the fridge. Heck these things were sticky! I ended up using a water-coated silicone fish slice thingy to move them into the water as they were sticking to my fingers. I ended up poaching them in batches of 4 and, by the time I’d got the fourth in, it was nearer a minute than 20 secs since the first went in. Mine floated straight away, I suspect they were over proved, as the final result wasn’t as dense as I was anticipating.  straight from the fridge  into the pan Into the oven (230 C): the first six onto my oven tile, the second directly on a baking sheet, one layer down, so a bit cooler as I didn’t have it on fan. Turned it down to 200C after 2 mins, as suggested, and baked for 20 mins altogether. The top layer were probably a bit darker than I would have liked, but the bottom two were much lighter (and got eaten within 5 mins by me and hubby so no pics of those, I’m afraid). Second lot out of fridge. Kept oven temperature at lower heat of 210 C as I thought this might be better. I was a bit quicker at poaching in-out, but these had stuck together even more than the first lot (it was a smaller tray), so that took a bit longer to separate. Decided to go mad and put some sesame seeds on the last four. These are a bit awkward to move about between the cooling rack, seed bowl and baking tray as they are so flubby*. *Technical term. Baked for 20 mins, with temp down to 200C after a couple of mins. The sesame 4 were on the bottom tray, but I moved them up for a few minutes when the top lot came out.  final result From left to right: sesame seed lot; lower temp second batch; higher temp first batch. I’ll take a pic of the crumb at lunchtime when I cut one up. First thoughts: not too difficult, tasted good, though more open crumb than I think is authentic. I’d definitely do them again, but try to cut back the proving time and stick with the lower temperature in the oven. edit:  bagel crumb  lunch - totally delicious! If this cunning plan works then I may never need to buy shop bagels ever again… Trying out a recipe from the wild yeast blog, which I think is the one cited on the fresh loaf:sourdough bagels revisited. I found the first easier to read and follow, as a recipe, but had checked out some of the tips in the second. Firstly, Susan suggests using a mixer, as the dough is very stiff. I’m all for trying to follow recipes as the author intended (first time anyway, allowing for possible substitutions if my store cupboard isn’t up to scratch), so hunted down the dough hook for my trusty old Bosch. I don’t normally use it as it’s such a faff to clean. Anyway, it did the trick, as suggested in the recipe (and wasn’t such a pain to clean afterwards). It was a reasonably tight dough, but not as much as I was anticipating, given all the comments I’ve seen elsewhere. The recipe was changed a tiny bit as I didn’t have any malt (used maple syrup), or milk powder (used a wee bit of yoghourt), and no dried yeast (used about a tsp fresh). Oh, and my starter was at 70% hydration. I may well have messed up the calculations here when adding extra water? I made her recipe around 53% hydration. Oh well, we’ll see tomorrow what they turn out like! It was a lot of fun shaping the bagels. Surprisingly easy, actually (famous last words?). I did try and leave a much larger hole as I’ve read about them morphing down to buns without holes, but mine were so springy that they kept pulling back towards a small hole. The spraying with water trick in the recipe was essential: I doubt I’d have managed it without. The moulded bagels:
They are now snugly wrapped in a blanket of silicone paper and clingfilm, having a rest in the fridge overnight. |
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These muffins should have used milk in the overnight sponge, but I had a bit of a scatty moment and was so used to adding water to a leaven that I forgot and used water instead, so added a bit of butter this morning to the final mix to compensate. They cooked better than the last lot as I didn’t have the frying pan on so high.