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We picked gallons of currant this year growing in the wild, red ones, black ones, orange ones....

We made tons of fresh-currant ice-cream to start with.

Then I made banbury cakes:

Whole Wheat pastry flour- Banbury cakes

Banbury 2

They were ummmmmm.... so goood

Today I made some 100% whole-wheat sourdough Currant & seed bread:

currant bread

currant bread 2

the bread is not sweetened. It's just a lean bread recipe to which I added pumpkin & sunflower seeds and lots of currants :)

Really good and tart :P

Today's Vermont Sourdough came out better than the last. I tried to be brave and really work the slashes and I think they're better but need work. It made me a wreck because I thought the whole thing would collapse. They didn't and next time I will cut deeper. I was really happy with the crumb this time.Vermont SourdoughVermont  The bread did not get a dark crust like last time probably because I put it in a cooler oven this time. 460º then down to 450º. Also I let the loaves rise 2 1/2 hrs. till they were light and puffy but still (I hoped) had more room to grow and they did once they hit the oven. I thank zolablue for that. This bread is so delicious it's my new favorite. I'm going to make it again for friends on Tuesday. I made today's bread to give away and as you can see I cut them in two but the breads going to my sister and she doesn't care. I had to see inside, right?

I hope many of you try this, it's an easy one. Also, like I said I added the salt along with the other ingredients in the final dough and there's no problem that I can detect.

Hello,

This is my first posting (although not my first bread). I've been researching an easy campfire bread recipe, and I ended up with a recipe for Australian Damper bread (actually there were several). I tried baking the bread at home, but because it used chemical leveners, I thought it tasted more like a biscuit rather than a bread (it was still good however). I did a little more research and found a recipe for a damper made with yeast (which is not the traditional way to make it). I had planned on baking it the traditional way in campfire ashes this weekend but I ended up baking it in my oven using baking tiles. So here's the recipe:

Australian Damper with Yeast

2 1/4 tsp yeast

2 Tbsp sugar

3 cups bread flour

1 Tbsp baking powder

3/4 tsp salt

1 1/4 cup warm water

1/4 cup melted butter

Mix the dry ingredient in a bowl. Add the melted butter and mix it in the flour mixture. Slowly add the water, knead lightly (about 1 minute), adding more flour as necessary. Let the dough rest in a bowl for 10 minutes. On a lightly floured surface, knead and shape the dough into a boule. Place it in a floured linen-lined proofing bowl and let it rise for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile preheat the oven to 375 degrees F with a baking stone on the middle rack and an old pan on the bottom rack. When the dough is risen, transfer it to parchement paper on an upside down cookie sheet (it helps slidding the dough onto the baking stone). Slash the dough.

Add ~1 cup boiling water to the old pan in the oven and let it steam for 1 minute before slidding the dough onto the baking stone. Bake for 35 minutes then cool on a baking rack. Enjoy!

Next time I'll try the bread on a campfire.

This Bread is quick ,easy and tasty.it is good for breakfast or for afternoon snack with tea.

*2 cups white self-raising flour.

*1 cup whole wheat self-raising flour.

1 teaspoon dry yeast.

1/2 teaspoon baking powder.

1/4 teaspoon salt.

4 tablespoons oil.

4 Tablespoons rose water.

2 Tablespoons sugar.

3 Tablespoons evaporated milk (low fat).

1 1/2 cups warm water .

1/4 cup dried dates,chopped.(optional)

*Home made white self-raising flour:1 cup white flour + 2 teaspoon baking powder.

1)Beat eggs and sugar in small bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy.

2)Stir in dry ingredients,milk,oil,warm water and rose water.

3)Spread mixture into prepared pan,sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds and Saffron.

4)or you can grease the pan ,sprinkle it with toasted sesame seeds and Saffron than Spread the mixture over.

5)Bake at 350 for 35 minutes.

zainab

http://arabicbites.blogspot.com/

Hi Bill,

 The results were not great! LOL, I forgot the salt. And my mind is having trouble focusing right now due to health. I flipped the amount of flour and water so had to try to fly by the seat of my pant and increase the flour. I knew I had more than enough of the preferment and more than enough starter was added. I made batards and they eat ok enough but I prefer your true pagnotta recipe.

Will write more later.

Bread Fix: Not the best picture, blurrrry! Having been on vacation, I have gone without touching my sourdough starter for more than a month. Amazingly to me, with a few feedings we were back in business. I just went crazy,  sourdough bagels with the help of  Susan & Bill, sourdough waffles with  fresh strawberries & raspberries for Father’s Day breakfast with the kids, yeasted BBA’s Vienna bread and Multigrain Extraordinaire. I also made 2 carrot cakes..the first one I neglected to put the sugar in..can you imagine that?!  The sourdough bagel formula is awesome. Thank you susanfnp and  bwraith. Finally, a bagel that tastes like home. My attempt at a garlic bagel needs some work, but the cheese bagel was to die for. I was a little hesitant at caraway and fennel, but OMG I think that is my new fav. My husband looked a little skeptical at the sound of the combo, but he really liked it too! I always feel  like the seeded varieties are a waste of money, since most of the goods end up on the floor, counter, table, down your shirt, you know what I mean! And they are pricey! the seeds that is..  The kids had never had sourdough waffles and loved them. They had 2 belgian waffles each! They are so light..ethereal comes to mind as a descriptive word.  Vienna bread is a lovely soft creamy bread and the Multigrain, just darn good. It has that Mt. St. Helen's look, don't ya think?

Wonderfully Soft White Bread
Original Recipe was from recipezaar.com, but I've tweaked it quite a bit as far as prep/rising/baking. I've been searching endlessly for the "perfect" wonder bread type texture/crumb, and this one is the BOMB. ;)

1 cup tepid water
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons margarine
1 tablespoon honey ( I used buckwheat honey)
3 cups all purpose flour (I used Robin Hood-Best for Bread-Homestyle White) This made a BIG difference in the texture of the bread.
1/4 cup powdered whole milk
2 teaspoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons SAF Gold Instant Yeast

1. Sprinkle yeast on water. Blend till yeast dissolves.
2. In this order add: honey, sugar, powdered milk, salt and stir well till blended
3. Add margarine and stir well again.
4. Add 1 cup of the flour and mix till fully blended (mixture will be like batter) Add remaining two cups of flour and blend with a fork till completely blended. Take dough out of mixing bowl and fold till smooth. Do NOT over work or knead! Just fold and press, fold and press.
5. Shape into boule and place in lightly oiled bowl for approx. 1 1/2 hours or till doubled.
6. When risen, take out dough and on a floured surface, shape into loaf and place in loaf pan. (again, DO NOT overwork).
7. Let rise in a warm place for approximately 40 minutes until doubled in size.
8. Bake on centre rack of preheated 350 degree oven for 25-30 minutes.
9. Cool on wire rack before slicing.

Here is a picture of the "attacked" loaf. DH LOVES Wonder Bread, and now he's a convert! LOL

I wrote recently about being disappointed with my loaves and several kind people suggested overproofing was the problem. Katie urged me to keep trying, so today was the day - I used my starter instead of barm and spiked the final dough with instant yeast as suggested by PR. My firm starter rose nicely and stayed over night in the frig and this morning I chopped it up and left it to warm up. I think I added too much water as the final dough was a little softer than I expected - PR says you can adjust that with flour for kneading but I was planning on using Dan Lepard's method, oil on the counter and no flour. I ended up doing the stretch and fold 3 times and the dough was "abundant", really springy and beginning to rise. It had doubled in just over 60 minutes in my cool kitchen. I shaped one half into a boule and the other into a long batard. The boule went into the rice flour coated banneton and the long loaf onto parchment paper on a baking sheet. Just for fun I baked it from cold, up to 450*, and it rose beautifully - and I used my brand new instant read thermometer to be sure it was cooked properly. The boule had a nice firm skin which was easy to slash, and that went into the heated oven (both with steam) and the oven spring was terrific. Both loaves had nice holey crumb, and I took pictures in case I ever learn how to post them. So thank you all for telling me to persist! I can't believe how much my bread has improved since I have been absorbing so much good information from this wonderful site, A

The Goal:

The idea for this test came from a thread by KipperCat asking about how to make a less sour sourdough. There was a general consensus in the thread that starter maintenance routines (feeding ratios and hydration) would have a small effect on the sour aspect of sourdough while varying the rise and proofing times would have a much more pronounced effect. Bill suggested an experiment, and as I was planning on baking a couple of loaves, I gave it a shot.

The Process:

I began the process by pulling Leon, my 100% hydration starter from the fridge on Wednesday and feeding it as I usually do -- 1:4:4 (in this particular case, one ounce starter, four ounces of water, four ounces of KA AP flour), once a day. This starter is very active, and after the Thursday AM feeding he was easily doubling within about 3 hours...I stir him down a couple of times during the day and he just rises right back up, so he seems content.

On Friday morning I set out to create two two-pound sourdough loaves, staying close to the basic sourdough recipe in The BBA using my starter as the base instead of his barm.

<tangential rant>

The only real pet-peeve I have with the BBA is that all of his measurements are in ounces. Why? It isn't that hard to provide both ounces and grams, and you can be more accurate with the grams...He has measurements like ".22 ounces" in there -- who has a scale that is accurate to a hundredth of an ounce?! ...so anyway, As I build his recipes, I convert the measurements to grams so that when I come back the second time I'm not still frustrated. All of this is to say that from here on out most of my measurements will be in grams.

</tangential rant>

I fed 100 grams of my starter with about ~60 grams of water and 200 grams of flour, leaving me with a freshly fed starter that should have the same hydration level (~70%) as Reinhart's firm starter, scaled up a bit to be able to make a total of four pounds of bread. As directed, I covered the starter and left it on the counter to feast for a few hours.

After 3 hours the starter had easily doubled in size, so I moved it to the fridge until Saturday AM.

Saturday morning I pulled the starter from the fridge, allowed it to come to room temperature and started building the final dough. My mixer doesn't handle 4 pounds of dough well, so I divided the starter exactly in half, and then went through the build process twice, adding exactly the same amount of flour, salt and water, by weight, to each batch -- since I was striving for identical loaves over perfect loaves, I measured all the water going into the first loaf, then added exactly that much to the second loaf, regardless of consistency. Fortunately, since everything else about the process was identical, the water amount was just about right both times, too. I also mixed, kneaded, rested, and kneaded each batch for the same amount of time, trying to ensure that everything about these two loaves was identical thus far. The one difference I did allow here is that I used warm water (as directed by the BBA) for the "fast" loaf and I used cooler water for the "slow" loaf. At the end of kneading, the fast loaf registered at 82 degrees, the slow loaf about 5 degrees less.

The fast loaf was placed in an oiled bowl and left on the kitchen table to rise, with the ambient temperature varying around 75 degrees. The slow loaf was placed on top of a glass bowl sitting in a cooler above a layer of ice, with the temperature staying somewhere around 50 degrees.

Three hours later, the fast loaf had doubled, so I shaped it and returned it to its "warm" environs. As hoped, the fast loaf wasn't showing much progress at all.

Another two hours passed, and the fast loaf was ready to go. I fired up the oven, butchered the scoring, and baked.

By 4 PM (7.5 hours of rise time), the slow loaf had about doubled, so I pulled it out, shaped it, moved it back to the cooler and then headed out to dinner. Six hours later, it was time to cook. I pulled the dough from the cooler and fired up the oven again. About a half and hour later, the second loaf hit the fire.

Short summary:

Two identically handled loaves, one with a total of 5 hours of bench time, one with a bit more than 13 hours.

Observations:

1) Both loaves are still far to dense. I am pretty sure my starter is just fine, so I'll be upping the hydration of the final dough the next time around.

2) It was a foolish mistake to take the slow loaf from the cooler and have it in the oven a 1/2 hour later, but I didn't want to be up all night, so I rushed it. The overall results would have been better had I left the loaf come up to room temperature over an extra hour or so instead of putting the cold dough into the oven...

3) ...finally, the flavor result.  After tasting each loaf I can conclusively say that there is virtually no difference in flavor between the two - both are only ever-so-faintly sour, which is not what I'm going for. So I'm surprised - the extra time for the rise and the proof didn't affect the flavor.

So what next? Two things:

1) I'm sure that what Bill and Brotkunst are saying is on the mark, so I'm undaunted. I will try this experiment again (but not next weekend - family is in town so I don't have as much time to fiddle)

2) I suspect there may be all sorts of ways that the density and the flavor are intertwined - perceptually, from a surface-area standpoint, what the density says about the flour and the yeast and timing...all that stuff. So for the short-term I'm going to focus on getting a single loaf of sourdough to come out well, then I'll get back to worrying about the flavors...

First, a very quick bio:

- I am a graduate student at Indiana University (in Bloomington, IN, home of The Bernard Clayton), studying cognitive psychology (on the research side of things, not the clinical/helpful side of things). More specifically I'm studying the evolution of learning and decision making processes. It has been noted several times on the site that folks with a technical bent tend to be drawn into baking. I am indeed one of those folks...My undergraduate education was in physics and computer science, and I spent 8 years as a software developer before the career change.

- One of the most rewarding aspects of being a graduate student, at least for me, is that I get to teach. I love teaching, and I have an immense respect for people that are excited and enthusiastic about sharing their knowledge of any topic. It's one thing to be an expert. It's something totally different to be an expert that can convey your knowledge to others and get them excited about it in the process. That's one of the things that draws me to this site...there are lots of teachers here.

- My wife and I do enjoy lots of other culinary adventures, trying to eat and cook just about anything we can, as time and finances permit. I have always loved to cook, but lately baking is winning out. As a big Alton Brown fan, I was drawn in by his baking book, and I haven't looked back...now I've got a 1/2 dozen baking books around and several more on the "need to pick that up soon" list. It's addicting.