beetroot sourdough

After the battle with the sticky tea towel my bread had a rustic shape to it but smelled divine.

The texture seemed fine and the colour less garish than the purple sticky dough I had left to rise for a couple of hours.

Nice.

bad blogger but...

What happened to the summer? My last post was in May, I'm afraid I am a bad blogger. On the plus side, my enthusiasm for baking has not waned. I have made a lovely sourdough bread most weekends. Even thought about taking my starter away on holiday to Berwick-upon-Tweed last month, much to the despair of my wife!

I have not been that adventurous though, with my favourite loaves being baked with 50-50 granary flour to either white or wholemeal. Until today that is, when I decided to have a go at a gloriously messy beetroot sourdough that I saw in Emmanuel Hadjiandreou's book How to make bread. Its a beautifully produced book and the purple dough leapt out from the page at me.

It's in the oven as I type. It was a much wetter dough than I am used to and I made a right mess in getting it into the oven from my improvised prooving basket (an under-floured sticky tea towel and colander). Flat and misshapen it may be but  the aroma wafting up from the kitchen is just fine... and there's the buzzer... got to go...

(not) like a knife through butter

Three cities. Three specialist cook shops. No luck.

I thought I may find a banneton or proving basket somewhere in Leeds, Manchester or Sheffield. The cook shops were full of lovely shiny things but when I enquired about proving baskets I got blank looks. When I explained what they were for, the Leeds shop assistant exclaimed that though they were not afraid of a niche market, this product was still too specialised for them. So much for the great real bread revival.

Mick's Classic Sourdough

This is a fifty-fifty wholemeal to white flour sourdough, the second recipe I have tried from Bethesdabasics. It's cooling on the rack as I write... It looks great.

Pain de Campagne

This is my first loaf from Mick Hartley's Bethesdabasics - Sourdough made Simple and I started with his Pain de Campagne, a classic white sourdough. The recipe and instructions are easy to follow and the loaf was lighter than I expected possible from a sourdough starter. 

If I said we had bread and cheese for Easter Sunday lunch it sounds a little austere, but when you realise that the bread was fresh out of the oven, and the cheese a very special mature organic cheddar alongside an unpasteurised Smoked Lancashire, then you may agree that coupled with a green salad it was a veritable feast. 

If you are sad like me, click for further photographs....

White sourdough

My first white sourdough bread - Didn't know white bread could taste so good!

Lazy Sunday

Bread by Daniel Stevens, part of the River Cottage Handbook series, has been my guide into baking sourdough bread. Yesterday I had a go at the River Cottage sourdough bread. this is 3 parts white flour to 1 part rye and follows the usual pattern of making a sponge the night before, kneading in the morning, allowing to ferment through the day and then prove early evening. The result was a nice, lighter well-risen bread that has made excellent toast with marmite. Tomorrow I am going to have a go at my first white sourdough bread to see if I can bake one of those breads with large air holes.

I'm really excited to have received  a copy of Mick Hartley's Bethesdabasics: Sourdough Made Simple - Techniques & Recipes from Bethesdabakers through the post yesterday. I read it in one sitting and have a much better understanding of how to maintain my starter and prepare ahead for each baking day. There are 13 basic recipes and I hope to share some photos as I attempt each one. Why not get your own copy here?

Lazy Sunday. I went to a Quaker meeting this morning and then on the way home I picked some more wild garlic by the river. Last week's wild garlic pesto was a great success, I used it in a number of pasta dishes and flavoured a tasty bulgar wheat salad to take to work for lunch which received some positive comments. I used the traditional combination of parmesan, olive oil and pine nuts but I have an idea for a more English combination....

Malted sourdough loaf II

My latest malted loaf almost fell prey to our cat, Bodhi.

This loaf had a better shape than my last effort. I had made a sponge the night before, kneaded it for 10 minutes in the morning; let it rise for 5 hours and then knocked it back, shaped it and left it for a further 2 1/2 hours.It had a much milder taste than my last loaf which I had let prove overnight. I am just beginning to see the number of variables that go into making sourdough, despite the limited number of ingredients! Still, its not just about producing a uniform loaf each time. Much to learn!

Malted sourdough loaf

I have just ordered Bethesdabasics, a guide to making sourdough bread from the PArtisan Baker. I am looking forward to trying some of his recipes and techniques and hope to post some of the results here. I have fond memories of Bethesda as I lived in North Wales in the late eighties/early nineties.

I have been making my own bread over the past three months. I have made a tasty wholemeal sourdough bread but my favourite sourdough loaf so far uses Dove Farm's Malted bread flour. I have been using a simple method I found at  River Cottage. Last Wednesday night I added 250g flour to 300g  water and 100g of my starter (which has a thick batter consistency), mixed it up and covered it, leaving in a cool place.

The next morning I added 300g of flour, a glug of olive oil and 10 g of salt. I kneaded the dough for about 10 minutes, it was initially quite sticky but I resisted the temptation to add more flour. I then shaped the loaf into a tight ball and then left it covered in a bowl.

Up to now I have usually gone to work and then at 6 pm I have knocked back the dough, reshaped in a tight ball and then left it for 2-3 hours to proove before baking in the oven. The results have been good. However, I was wondering what it would be like if I left it to prove for longer, so I improvised a proving basket (mixing bowl and a floured tea towel!) and left it overnight.

Friday morning I quickly placed the risen dough on a floured wooden chopping board, slashed the top of the loaf and put it onto a hot pizza stone in the oven, with the usual misty spray of water to create a steamy atmosphere. The bread had a great aroma as it baked.

The crust was chewy and the tangy complex flavour of the bread only required a little butter to complement it.
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Best tasting loaf so far. I think I've caught the bug for this sour dough  bread-making!

Wholemeal sourdough