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COMMENTARY: Well I bit the bullet on Day 10 and decided that doubling or no, I would use the leftover starter from General Chaos' morning feeding or die trying! I also had been having a serious case of Sourdough Envy due mainly from Tattoed Tonkas conquest of the Apple Bacon Onion Sourdough Bread and also Katie's very successful sourdough accomplishments. Unfortunately, I must apologize in advance because I find myself, when in the midst of baking, to revert back to less than stellar habits - mainly the "fly by the seat of your pants" throw in a handful of that, a pinch of this, an eye of newt, a slap in the a88...you probably get the picture? It's really a whirl wind of concocting inspired no doubt by long hours hiding in the bathroom as a little girl playing "chemistry" in the medicine chest and making "cakes" made of shampoo, old spice and shaving foam. :D Hell with a family of five the bathroom was the only semi-guaranteed place of privacy since it had a lock on the door. But I digress!

It all started happily enough with my decisicion to use the remaining starter from General Chaos' morning feeding. He'd risen by 75% and I thought, "That's close enough for government work! So I had just a smidge under 8oz (1cup by weight) of starter and using Mike Avery's general rule for starters that 1 cup is approximately equal to a package of yeast I opted to use the fairly large amount of starter for the recipe because I doubted GC's rising "oomph". I determined to use Bill's Sourdough Pagnotta recipe since it has a good all around moist crumb and nice crust and also has a good starter process laid out. So I ask in retrospect? Why couldn't I just follow the dagburn recipe as written? Dunno. I guess it started to go wrong from the beginning because I chose to add double the amount of starter it called for but didn't want to subtract out the amount of flour and water from the remaining flour and water ingredients, fearing there would be too little dough. The plan was to cut off a couple of hunks of the fermented dough and use them for pizza for dinner and the other portion for a large loaf of Tattoed Tonka's Apple-Bacon Onion Sourdough.

So I took Bill's recipe, doubled the starter and added the other ingredients to it. (I will write down the recipe "as I remember it" haha!). I did combine the starter, flour and water but left the salt out at that point and let it sit for 2 hours. I had only stirred enough to combine but not enough to begin gluten development. It was very lumpy and dry. So I added maybe an additional 1/2 cup of water. Don't know why I did that. I think it's cuz I'm used to seeing and working with a wet dough. Then I started doubting myself. I didn't know if I was supposed to let it sit undisturbed for 8 hours or if I was supposed to let it sit but start developing the dough. Remember I'm making this all by hand and I prefer the stretch and fold instead of the old kneading technique. So it sat and I folded and stretched and I could really feel and see the dough starting to develop structure even though it was still very wet. I combined, by folding in, the apple bacon onion mixture and let it sit again but obviously not long enough, judging by the pictures. Maybe that is my biggest error - and I think this is where I make most of my mistakes...my impatience at the end gets to me and instead of allowing it to fully proof, I rush this stage and underproof prior to baking. There was no oven spring to speak of. The bread is incredibly dense and the whole structure virtually non-existent especially toward the bottom.

So what did I learn from this? I learned that I'm too new of a baker to fly by the seat of my pants. I MUST FOLLOW A RECIPE! I learned that time is my friend. I learned that it prolly isn't in my best interest to plan on making and baking sodo the same day. I think it's a 1-1/2 to 2 day process. I learned I must learn more about sourdough methods and process from people who really "know". I learned that even though GC isn't doubling like it should, he still bubbled and danced and made the bread rise through the fermentation process. He was really quite happy! I learned that sourdough bread fermentation will NEVER SMELL LIKE A POOLISH WITH YEAST! If I want that lovely yeasty smell then I need to use a yeasted poolish or create an air spray flavored with that essence! ;) Not happenin' but a very good idea for someone!

Ok so here are some piccys and I will follow with the recipe! I just made Brain aka my hubby breakfast. He made the coffee. And I made Apple Bacon Onion Cheese Toast with Sharp Cheddar.

Apple-Bacon-Onion Sourdough Pagnotta

 Apple-Bacon-Onion Sourdough Pagnotta Cut

 Apple-Bacon-Onion Sourdough Pagnotta Cheese Toast

BLUE ZEBRA'S APPLE-BACON-ONION SOURDOUGH PAGNOTTA BREAD

(As derived from Bill Wraith's Sourdough Pagnotta Bread Recipe & Tattoed Tonka's Apple-Bacon-Onion Sourdough Bread Recipe)

Disclaimer: The actual measurements in this recipe have been changed to protect the innocent. Although they appear credible please do not confuse them with their actual accurate conterparts. For instance a 1/4 cup of brown sugar is masquerading because he is too embarrassed to say a couple of loose handfuls from a medium sized hand). Please do not anticipate accurately reproducing this recipe from one instance to another or across continents. It won't work. You can NEVER make it just like a Blue Zebra! Bwahahahahahahaha! The madness must continue!)

For Bread Dough:

228 g Starter [Roughly 8 oz of Starter (My starter is at a 1:2:2 ratio and is made up of 2oz starter: 4oz AP flour: 4oz filtered water)]

100 g WW Flour

700 g AP Flour

650 g Filtered Water

114 g Filtered Water *   (Additional to original recipe added by Blue Zebra)

1-1/4 Tbsp Salt  (Iodized salt)

For Filling:

2.25 oz Dried Apples (1/2 of a 4.5 oz package of Walmart Store Brand Dried Apples)

1/4 lb of Bacon (Salt Cured)

1 Yellow Onion (Purple onion is preferred by it's hard to get good help these days)

Bacon Grease (for cooking about 1/4 cup more or less, probably more...can you ever really have too much bacon grease?)

3 Tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar

2 Tbsp Reduction Syrup from Cooked Onions

1/4 c Brown Sugar

1 Tbsp Unsalted Butter - Cold

1/2 tsp Ground Cinnamon

1 tsp Salt (or so)

1/2 tsp Black Pepper (or so)

Method:

1. Combine starter with flour and water and mix to incorporate until all ingredients are wet but lumps will still remain. Cover with plastic wrap or a plate and let rest.

2. Rest for 2 hours in an incubator (I used my oven turned off with the light on and cup of hot water sitting next to it. Temp was around 80-82 degrees).

3. Remove dough from incubator and fold dough in the pan. This is a step I do in place of beating the crap out of it with a spoon or dough whisk. I use a broad sweeping folding motion from the bottom of the bowl and raise a large section up out of the pan stretching it as much as possible without tearing the bread. When I meet absolute resistance I let the dough come back to rest in the center of the pan. After each stretch I rotate the bowl 90 degrees and repeat the process making sure to scrape down any extra dough off the sides of the pan so that I have one sticky mass of gelatinous dough. The dough is VERY WET right now. Repeat this folding 8 times or 2 complete bowl revolutions. Cover and return to incubator.

4. Rest1 for 1 hour in incubator.

5. Repeat step 3 with the folding in the pan. By this time, there is substantial gluten development. I added the salt at this point and foled it into the dough during the FF. The dough actually holds a tiny bit of shape and is a "dough mound" in the center of the bowl. The appearance of the dough when I first take it out of the incubator is bubbly and it appears to be rising. I am careful during the stretch and folds in the bowl to not "punch the dough down". I want to encourage the dough to continue to rise and bubble. Cover and return to incubator.

6. Rest2 for 1 hour in incubator.

7. Turn1 dough out onto floured counter. I used quite a liberal amount of flour on the counter because the dough was so wet. Using the Mike Avery stretch and fold technique I gave the dough 2 complete episodes of French Folds. That is: I stretch the dough out and folded in thirds one direction then folded in thirds a second direction. I repeated this process twice. Return the dough to the bowl and cover and return to incubator.

8. Rest3 for 1 hour in incubator. (Make sure to maintain approx 80 degree environment).

9 Turn2 dough out and make 1 complete revolution of FF (French Folds). That is: I stretch the dough out and folded in thirds one direction then folded in thirds the second direction. Return the dough to the bowl and cover and return to incubator.

10. Rest4 for 1 hour in incubator.

10.5  Make filling and allow to cool completely:

10.5a Cut bacon into 1" pieces and saute in pan until just starting to crisp but remaining a little pliable.

10.5b Saute roughly cut onions (you want them very large) in bacon grease til translucent but still retaining body.

10.5c Remove onions and any grease from pan using a spatula.

10.5d Deglaze pan with about 1/4 cup of water (I would use apple cider here if you have it. I obviously did not have it.

10.5e Reduce liquid to a syrup (roughly between 1 and 2 tbsp) by cooking on high heat and scraping all browned bits off the bottom.

Note: Syrup will be a very dark caramel color and will smell like onion soup.

10.5f Add dried apples and onions to the syrup.

10.5g Add a little more bacon grease to loosen the mixture up.

10.5h Add apple cider vinegar.

10.5i Add salt, pepper and cinnamon.

10.5j Add brown sugar.

10.5k Saute together using a spatula and cooking over high heat. The apples will start to rehydrate and the smell will be dark and delicious. You will see the liquid thicken and start to reduce. Reduce and concentrate over med to high heat. You want to be careful not to scorch so you may need to move the pan on and off the heat (that is why I always cook on high. I would rather control my temp by moving on and off the burner than for waiting for a cooking element to cool or heat up.).

10.5l Once the mixture is thick and bubbly, turn off heat and remove pan to a cool part of the stove.

10.5m Add 1 tbsp of cold butter to the mixture in the pan and shake to incorporate butter into the sauce. It should bind and help thicken the sauce.

10.5n Set filling aside and allow to cool to room temperature. Continue with your bread making as in step 11.

11. Turn3 - Repeat FF in step 9 as instructed.

12. Rest5 for 1 hour in incubator. (Make sure to maintain approx 80 degree environment)

13. Turn4 - Repeat FF in step 9 as instructed.

14. Cut dough into sections each section to it's own bowl. Cover and return to incubator.

15. Rest6 for 30 minutes in incubator.

16. Remove dough from pan and stretch out dough until about 1" thick. Add filling mixture as you would if making cinnamon rolls. Spread it over entire surface of dough and include adding the syrupy liquid. Work quickly and fold dough into 3rd with a FF then fold in 3rds again in the opposite direction.

17. Place folded dough into a banneton to rise or else put it into a pan for rising. You will want to bake this dough in a pan to avoid making a mess on your stone. I don't have a banneton so I use a piece of parchment paper inside a stainless steel bowl and let it rise. That way I place the dough seam side down and let it rise then pick up the parchment and transfer it directly into my baking pan or stone. Cover rising bowl with a dishtowel and place in a warm area of your kitchen.

18. Preheat your oven to 550 degrees. Place 10-1/2" cast iron chicken fryer pan into the preheating oven and preheat pan at the same time.

19. Check your dough. Dough should be rising. Pull up and stretch dough around any areas where the fillings are either escaping or weeping. Re-cover the dough and continue to let rise. (This is the step I rushed. I should have let the dough double ... however long that takes but I figured I would still be there all night and it was about 11:30 by that time so I opted for cooking the little bastage and letting the chips fly where they may!)

20. Transfer dough and parchment to the hot frying pan. Be careful! Remember things that come out of the oven are hot! Do NOT try to pick this pan up with your bare hand or you will be VERY VERY sorry you did! The dough starts cooking immediately on the bottom.

21. Place pan in oven, reduce heat to 450 and cook until the bread is done. Or thermometer registers about 210 degrees. That took about 45-50 minutes.

22. Remove parchment and bread from pan to a wrack and let cool overnight. Don't cut into it until it cools.

23. Photograph, cut, photograph, top with your addiction of choice, photograph.

24. Enjoy!

Notes and Impressions: The smell of this bread is delicious. Very sweetly cinnamonny apply with a tiny sour note. The taste of the bread has a sweet forward note with a hint of cinnamon apple. The finish (or back of the mouth) note however was overly sour so it dominated the sweeter and more delicate notes of the brown sugar-cinnamon and apple. That sourness is likened to commercial sliced raisin bread that you get. My opinion is that it was too sour. This continued to be the case when we ate it as cheese toast using sharp cheddar. My hubby gave it an 8 but then I think that's because he loves me. I gave it about a 7...maybe.

Things I could do to change it?

1. I would let it fully develop so it wasn't quite as dense.

2. I would reduce the amount of starter and contemplate using a bit of yeast as a boost.

3. I would increase the amount of sugar by adding sugar to the fermenting dough as well as increasing the sugar in the fillings slightly.

4. I would increase the amount of the apples.

5. Substitute lardons for the bacon slices. They got lost in the bread. Add more of it too.

6. Add more onion and cook with more bacon grease.

7. Add a tiny bit more cinnamon.

I used some of my starter that would have been discarded last night during refreshment to make some english muffins.  I found this recipe about 3 years ago on the KAF Baking Circle.  It was submitted by a user going by the name chard.  It makes great english muffins!

The texture is similar to Wolfermans, not big "nooks and crannies", but a little meatier.  I know a wetter dough would create larger holes, but I like them this way.  I used semolina on the parchment while they rested, and the flavor it gives to the bottom of the muffin is fantastic.  Other than only using 2 cups of flour for the whole recipe, I followed the amounts and ingredients exactly.

Sourdough English Muffins

Makes about 12

1/2 C starter (mine is a 100% hydration white starter) 

1 C milk

2-3/4 C AP flour

1 TBSP sugar

3/4 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

Semolina or cornmeal, for dusting

Combine starter, 2 C of flour and milk in a large bowl.  Stir to combine, cover with plastic wrap, and leave out for 8 hours or overnight.

After the overnight rest, add remaining flour (I didn't add any), sugar, salt and baking soda and mix well.  Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 4-5 minutes.  Roll out to 3/4" and cut with a biscuit cutter into rounds.  You can reroll the scraps, but you may need to let the dough rest before cutting more muffins from them.  Place muffins on a piece of parchment dusted with semolina and let rest for 45 minutes.

Spray griddle or skillet lightly with spray oil.  Heat to medium and cook muffins for about 6-8 minutes on each side, or until browned on the top and bottom and cooked through.  These have great griddle spring and rise quite a bit during the "baking".

Split with a fork and enjoy with your favorite topping!  I don't even toast them if I want to eat them right off the griddle--they don't have that raw taste that storebought english muffins have.

Enjoy! 

Thank you for the kind offer, TT, but it was logging on that was giving me grief - pictures will be waaaay down the road. I seem to have beaten the computer into submission and didn't get any rude messages this evening. I only hope this doesn't show up twice because I went to preview and lost what I had written. I want to thank Weavershouse for the pizza recipe and great pictures. In a weak moment I invited my grandaughters to sleep over tomorrow night, and I decided we can make individual pizzas for supper. Margaret and Lily will enjoy making a mess and hopefully we will eat well. Of course I could be in big trouble because they get pizza at home, and as you know, comparisons are odorous. (How funny, I always thought it was "odious".) So the dough is sitting in the frig, next to a batch of pate fermentee for Pane Sicilian from the BBA. Can we spell obsession? I made the Pane Sicilian on Monday and really like working with the pate fermentee which I had never tried before. The loaves looked wonderful when I took them out of the frig - and then I practically ruined them by having the oven shelf too high. The tops were almost charred, but it didn't slow the family down. They devoured one loaf before supper with olive oil and balsamic vinegar and said it was the best thing I had made so far. I wasn't happy about the almost disaster, hence the second attempt. Film at 11, A

Well, maybe it didn't turn out so bad after all. Although the crust is very hard and it didn't rise as much as I had hoped. It sure is a nice color and it actually smells like real bread.first loaf - top view

Last night we had some mashed potatoes.  I had just read the BBA pugliese formula recently, and thought that I would make it with some of the leftovers.  Well, as it happens, I found the Potato Rosemary bread on my way to the pugliese, and it also contains mashed potatoes!  Then I saw that the general formula for the biga makes enough for both the pugliese and the potato rosemary breads.  And then I discovered that my leftover potatoes weighed EXACTLY as much as the amounts called for in the two recipes.  A sign from the universe, perhaps?  So I made the biga last night and started today with the potato rosemary bread.

This is wonderful bread.  I used fresh rosemary from a plant in my driveway (I have to container garden, bc our lot, although large, is too sloped and shady to grow much of anything in a garden sense).  I used plain, seasoned leftover mashed russet potatoes from dinner.  The only thing I did differently from the formula as written was to omit the garlic, because my husband had an opinion about that.  Also, my mashed potatoes must have been on the moist side, because I had to add a little more flour and knead a little longer to get the "tacky but not sticky" texture as described in the book.  I slashed it with a wet knife, rather than trying the lame again (I am so lame with the lame).  It worked well--the best slash was the one I went over twice.

It's soft yet chewy, light yet meaty.  It would make a fantastic ham or turkey sandwich, an idea I'm going to explore tomorrow at lunch.  The cracked pepper and rosemary give it a little bite, but aren't overpowering. I will definitely bake this bread again.

I want to post here how I started my sourdough starter, and what happened throughout the process, so I can come back and review if necessary later.

All amounts are weight measurements measured on my Salter scale. All water is Brita-filtered water at room temperature.  Starter is rotated between two Mason jars with each feeding so jar is always kept fairly clean and sludge-free.  Ring cap is placed loosely on jar after feeding.

Day 1:  Combined 4 oz KAF bread flour and 4 oz Brita-filtered water.  Put in Mason jar and loosely covered with ring cap.

Day 2:   Morning--Fed with 4 oz water, 4 oz flour.

            Evening--The starter had more than tripled during this day and was foamy, bubbly, runny and sour-smelling.  Causes a lot of                         excitement in the house.  Stirred down, dumped to 4 oz starter, and fed with 8 oz flour, 8 oz water (1:2:2 ratio).

Day 3: Dumped all but 4 oz of starter.  Fed with 8 oz water and 8 oz flour.  Some small bubbles, but nothing spectacular.  No rise.

Day 4:   Dumped to 3 oz, fed with 6 oz water and 6 oz flour.  There has been no rising since the big foamy mess of Tuesday.

Day 5:  Kept 6 oz starter, fed 6 oz water and 6 oz flour. (I don't know why I decreased to a 1:1:1 feeding, probably just a senior moment.)

Day 6:  Kept I don't know how much, but I have notes I fed at 1:1:1.

Day 7:  Same as Day 6, fed 1:1:1.

Day 8:  Fed in the AM 1:1:1 (on 3 oz of starter), then fed in the PM the same way.  The starter rose by double this day.

Day 9:  Fed 1:1:1 on 3 oz of starter, then had to stir down 3 hours later bc starter had tripled. Fed again at noon, 1:2:2 on 3 oz., tripled again             in 3 hours.  Kept stirring down all afternoon.  Fed again in the PM, 1:2:2.

After that, I followed bwraith's advice and started feeding 1:4:4 feedings on a small amount of starter, like 20 grams.  The starter is doubling on this diet after about 6 hours.  Ambient temp in the kitchen is high 70s.

Day 10:  Baked with starter!  Made good bread!  Experiment is a success!!! 

I never thought I'd see the day when I would get excited about a lump of dough. I just finished kneading a basic recipe and now I have to wait a very long 90 minutes for it to rise before kneading it again. It's very warm and humid here today so I wonder if that will affect the rising time. Any thoughts? My wife is going to be very surprised when she gets home because I've been talking about doing this for months. Her first clue will be the fact that it will be very warm in the kitchen even though the air conditioning is going full blast. No, wait a minute. Her first clue will be when she opens the front door and the wonderful aroma of freshly baked bread massages her olfactory nerves. Yeah, that's it.

I have never baked a loaf of bread in my life. I am 53 years old. My mom still makes delicious Irish soda bread. But it is my brother who lives in Costa Rica that has inspired me to finally bake some bread. I am the type of person who would never be satisfied just baking a loaf of plain white bread every weekend. I tend to max out everything I do (I started running a few years ago to get in shape and lost 42 pounds inside of 6 months). Then I started drinking beer and stopped running only to find that the 42 pounds came back with a vengeance. DUH! Anyway, I am going to bake my first loaf of bread tomorrow. Something about the concept absolutely fascinates me and I can't wait to get started. I work from home and my schedule is very flexible so I foresee no problems. I plan to post my progress for anyone that might be interested but mostly for my own amusement. {_;)>

After being on vacation 10 days, it’s taken me almost 2 days of intermittent poking around to catch up on the various goings on at TFL.  This is one busy bunch of bakers!  I especially enjoyed the JMonkey/TattooedTonka sourdough starter event and the reminiscing by others about how they got started with making bread.

Since we weren’t pressed for time, we decided to take a train from Kansas City to Chicago, and then from Chicago to Grand Rapids, Michigan, which is the end of the line for that Amtrak route.  Our oldest daughter, her husband, and their son traveled with us.  Our not-quite-5-year-old grandson, already a veteran air traveler, thought that riding the train was just about the coolest thing he has done so far.  The generous seating arrangements definitely are more comfortable than most cars or aircraft for a similar duration trip, not to mention the ability to move around without banging into your fellow travelers.  If they would make high-speed lines more widely available here in the U.S., I’d definitely use rail more often. 

Most of our time in Michigan was spent visiting family but we did manage to play tourist for a couple of days.  We visited Mackinac Island one day and did all of the usual sightseeing/fudge eating/T-shirt buying stuff.  Hmm; guess that makes us “fudgies”.  That’s a northern Michigan term for tourists, especially those from downstate, as well as a nod to the fudge shops that proliferate in most of the towns up there that draw tourists.  Our grandson was thrilled by all of the horses that are used to transport goods and people by wagon or carriage, since cars and trucks are banned from the island.  While one is less likely to be mowed down by oncoming traffic while crossing the street, it’s just as necessary to watch where you put your feet as it is to keep an eye out for carriages or bicycles.  We also bought some pasties from a store in Mackinaw City and took them back for one evening’s dinner with my wife’s brother’s family.  Yum!  Sorry, Mini-Oven, we never did make it across the bridge into the U.P.  Guess that will have to wait for another trip.  The other touristy thing we did was to tour some of the wineries on Old Mission peninsula north of Traverse City on another day.  There were only one or two in the region 30 years ago but the numbers have been growing in recent years and some of them are turning out some very drinkable wines.   

No baking was attempted while we were away, so I’m definitely looking forward to firing up the oven this weekend.  I was afraid that I might actually have to buy some bread at the supermarket when we got back into town, but was relieved to find some of my own in the freezer.  (Help me!  I’m turning into a bread snob!)  We did get to enjoy some other folks’ baking, though.  My mom made a batch of bismarks for the crew after a long day of cutting, splitting and stacking firewood for next winter.  A friend brought both dilly buns and home-baked hamburger buns for a cookout on another evening.  All were wonderful and none survived for very long. 

Vacations are funny things.  I never want them to end, but I’m always happy to get back to my own place and sleep in my own bed.  Okay, so maybe I’m the funny thing.  Anyway, I’m back home and happy with that and with the trip.

Just thought I would start a blog, so I can stop highjacking bluezebra's with all of my sourdough questions.  Hopefully I will soon be posting some photos of my own sourdough loaves!