fed starter on the right, old starter on the left
It does seem to be rising, so I’ll keep doing what I’m doing. Tomorrow will be a week since I started feeding it. I may move on to the next step then, or wait until Friday so I can bake on Saturday.
Link: Tartine’s Country Bread
I’ve decided to revive this bread journal (I can’t believe it’s been seven years). It hasn’t been seven years since I baked bread, of course, but I haven’t felt the need to document it.
I started a new starter a week ago, following the Tartine formula. After I mixed it up I started doing more research on sourdough starters and found this Managing Your Sourdough Starter resource. I would like to be able to keep this starter around for a while, unless I hate it.
So, I mixed the flour (half bread flour, half whole wheat) and water last Sunday. Two days later it seemed to be puffing a bit. I hadn’t stirred it at all and it was getting dry on top, so I stirred it up and it started to look more active. I’ve fed it every day since, but it doesn’t seem to be changing much. It’s definitely alive and it has the sour smell, but it’s not “rising and falling predictably” like the recipe talks about. Today when I fed it I kept the extra that I was supposed to discard to see if it will do anything more without being fed yet. Maybe it’s just slow like my last one.
When I saw this recipe over at Smitten Kitchen in January, I knew I would have to try it. It looked like the perfect sandwich bread. But, at the time I was on a whole grain bread kick. I eventually came to my senses and admitted that the 100% whole wheat bread was not doing the trick. Sure, it’s better for you than store bought “wheat” bread, but it wasn’t what I craved.
This 33% wheat bread is also Peter Reinhart’s recipe, from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. I think I’ll have to add that book to my collection.
2 1/2 cups (11.25 oz) unbleached bread flour
1 1/2 cups (6.75 oz.) whole-wheat flour
1 1/2 tablespoons (.75 oz.) honey
1 1/2 teaspoons (.38 oz.) salt
3 tablespoons (1 oz.) powdered milk
1 1/2 teaspoons (.17 oz.) instant yeast (I used active dry with no problem)
2 tablespoons (1 oz.) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/4 cups (10 oz.) water, at room temperature
» Full Recipe at smittenkitchen.com
This is what I started out with:
14 oz starter
1 tbsp oat bran
1 tbsp wheat germ
1 tbsp flax seeds, ground
5 oz rolled oats, finely ground
4 oz bread flour
4 oz 1% milk, warmed
.5 oz canola oil
1.5 oz honey
1.25 tsp salt
.25 oz yeast
I decided not to make a soaker, since I wasn’t using any addition whole wheat flour, so I mixed everything together all at once. It ended up needing a lot more moisture and flour. I shouldn’t have used that many oats. I ended up adding about 3 oz additional water, and 4 oz additional bread flour. I let it mix in the mixer for a while so the gluten would develop sufficiently.
I ended up removing 11 ounces of the dough because I thought it was too much for the loaf pan. I tried making some pretzels with the extra, but they didn’t turn out too great.
I think I took out too much of the dough though, because the loaf didn’t get as big as I wanted.
This one didn’t rise at all after it went in the oven. That’s probably because I let it proof too long.
The verdict: not great. A little tough.
I think I need to take a break from the bread baking for a couple weeks. I have so much bread in the freezer that I’m probably never going to eat.
Aside from the burnt bottom, the bread is great. Makes me want to get a baguette pan though, so the bottom won’t be flat. Or burnt.
Update (3.3.09): I ordered the baguette pan last night!
This is the first time I’ve incorporated steam into the baking process. I’m amazed by the outcome. If only I hadn’t left them in the oven too long… The bottoms are pretty dark. I hope it still tastes ok.
For the steam, I put a rimmed baking sheet on a rack in the highest position while the oven preheated. When the loaves were ready to go in the oven, I poured about a cup of hot water on the hot sheet. I also spritzed the oven walls with water with a misting spray bottle. I think I left the oven temperature too high after I put the bread in. Then I didn’t watch it as closely as I should have because the new HD TV was distracting me…
Also, next time I make baguettes I’ll try to slash them at a sharper angle.
Since I’m serving this with soup, I thought a nice, crusty baguette would be perfect. Now, I don’t know if they’ll turn out as crusty as I’m hoping, but at least I have the shape down. I made a makeshift couche out of parchment and a couple rolled up kitchen towels.
soaker
14 oz mother starter
2 oz unbleached bread flour
5 g salt
.25 oz yeast
1.5 oz honey
1 oz canola oil
I mixed it in the stand mixer again. I kneaded it by hand for a couple minutes, then put it back in the mixer after letting it rest. I think I may have actually kneaded it enough this time.
I’ve decided that 100% whole wheat is a bit much. For this loaf I adapted the master formula so that the starter is 100% whole wheat but the soaker just uses bread flour. The book provides a formula for a transitional whole wheat bread, which is also a 50% whole wheat loaf, but that one calls for a whole wheat soaker and a white biga instead of a starter. I wanted to use my starter because I’d refreshed it a few days ago and I didn’t want to waste it.
Since the whole point of the soaker is to soften up the whole grains, I figured this one didn’t have to sit for a few hours before I could use it. I just let it sit while I waited for my starter to come to room temp from being in the refrigerator.
8 oz unbleached bread flour
1/2 tsp salt
6 oz milk, warmed
Everyone said they liked the bread (my nephew was practically shoveling it into his mouth). I thought it was a little too dry. It didn’t have much of a rye flavor either, which was probably a good thing for this occasion. I wonder if adding the onions would have made it more moist.
