|
|
|
Sour Dough Italian/French/American Bread
3 3/4 hour rise time, 39 minute bake @ 450dF First, you must make a sour dough starter
Sour dough starter (one method of many):
2 TBS Flour 2 TBS Water Let sit at room temp for a couple of days then: Still well and add the same. Add to a bowl (not metal) about equal parts water and flour, I use unbleached all purpose flour. Stir it to a gooey mix, cover it with plastic (and rubber band) set it in a room temperature place and in a couple of days. Then stir it and add to it equal parts flour and water (you may have to repeat this the next day(s) or so) and soon you will see it starting to bubbles (if you haven't already), that’s the yeast starting to form and convert the flour to nitrous oxide or some other funny gas. If it seems really runny, or if you just feel like it, add a little more flour. The more you add to it and let it sit for a day or so, the more active it becomes. Keep repeating this until it's good and bubbly and you have at least a cup of starter to go into refrigerator. Once you have it made, it will take a couple of uses for it to get really active and tasty; Starter can be really soupy or really firm; pancake batter is a bit thicker than mine. If you want to hurry things up, add a pinch of store bought yeast at the very beginning (I've never done that). Now it's time to make Bread
My homemade 15 inch bread pan, made from 8 inch stainless steel flashing, available at your local lumber yard. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashing_(weatherproofing)
To make 1 loaf: 1 Cup Sour Dough Starter 1/2 Cup Water 1 Heaping TBS Wheat Germ (mostly removed when flour milled so re-added here) 1 Heaping TBS Gluten Flour (acts as a binder, sticky-ness, mostly removed when flour milled so re-added here) 1 tsp Salt Flour as needed to bring to proper consistency and for Board if used.
Take the starter out of the refrigerator. Mine is in about a 2 qt bowl (see photo aove) covered with plastic wrap. Add ¾ cup water and 1 cup flour, stir, cover and set out overnight. In the morning, make the bread, allowing 5 hours till bake time.
Put the starter in large bowl. Add cold water and then the salt, wheat germ and gluten flour and stir it up. Then start adding flour and stirring with a wooden spoon and adding flour until it starts to ball up, then sprinkle with flour and kneed with hands until nice and silky and a little sticky (about 5 minutes). Sprinkle with flour and set aside covered with cloth to "proof" for 1 hour. Form a loaf (see below) and put into a (special?) pan sprayed with oil (canola). Place covered with cloth in a cool place for 4* hours. Preheat oven at 450 degrees in time and cook for around 25 minutes or longer, or shorter depending on the oven and/or your preference. Spraying water in the oven or putting a pan in the oven (bottom) with a little water arguably helps the bread brown. The one above was baked for 30 minutes. Oh, and to make it look cool, sprinkle it with flour and slice lengthwise down the top with a razor blade (or lame) just before it goes into the oven for baking. Place on cooling rack.
All the above is variable, just ratios that I find makes very tasty bread.
To form a loaf
it is important to do it correctly in
order for the loaves to rise consistently. Take the dough on a board, flatten
to about 7 inches in diameter then roll the two ends toward the center pressing
(sealing) with the tips of your fingers or heal of your hand as you go. Make
the two rolls even so the rolled parts are equal then roll the two rolled ends into a
final roll pressing the seam with the heal of your hand.
Or you can just roll it up into a loaf.
* Rise time is temperature dependent, if done right, it goes into the oven before it has risen totally so it finishes the rise in the oven, it's call "oven spring".
Practice makes perfect.
============================================================================================
|
(I've never done that.)