NON-sour bread at last
For a recent dinner featuring shrimps in Pernod, there was special request for the bread to be made WITHOUT using my wild yeast. So I fell back on one of our favourites from Maggie Glezer's book Artisan Baking Across America: Acme's Rustic Baguettes. On first reading, the recipe seems a little complicated with its double preferment but it is almost fool proof. And it's NOT sour. Not even remotely.
The bread was so successful and so good and so free of any sour taste that it is the primary reason for the fit of pique when I threw our wild yeast starter down the drain.
I feel so free!
Even though the shape isn't quite right, everything else about the bread was great. Some day I might actually shape the bread in baguettes but boules are SO much easier. The only thing that I haven't managed to get right is to keep the loaves from growing into each other as they rise.
To learn more about our feast, please read here.
Comments
Elizabeth, I find that if I properly care for my starter, my pain au levain is not sour at all. It's a function of how often the starter is refreshed and how much starter is used to innoculate the dough (thus influencing the first fermentation time).
SteveB
http://www.breadcetera.com
Steve, I'm glad that your starter is working for you. I had been fighting with mine, trying to find a balance and regularly feeding it. The struggle just wasn't worth the effort. When (if??) our kitchen ever gets warmer than 15C, I'll consider setting out the traps to capture wild yeast again.
But in the meantime, I'm returning to using commercial yeast. Even that is causing problems right now. If I can't use the oven with only the light turned on to allow bread to rise, it takes forever. And today and yesterday, this is what happened because the oven was required for baking shortbread.
-Elizabeth
P.S. Who me? Cranky because it's actually winter in December??
I know where you're coming from. Avoid stress esp. this time of year! (Warning Full Moon approaching soon!)
I think dumping was drastic even if drain pipes now smell sweeter. A firm starter packed away in the fridge for a few months until springtime might have out-lived the "tired of sourdough" syndrome.
Sorry, I just wanted to let anyone else know that there are alternatives. One can have sourdough and eat commercial yeast too. One doesn't have to decide for one and not the other.
Mini O
I'm so glad to hear that at least one person here understands what prompted me to go crazy. It's true; I was way over into the red section fo the stressmeter. And yes, it was probably a bit rash to dump the starter entirely but it was becoming a bit too albatross-like. We have so little freezer room and so little fridge space. Every time I went to make bread, I'd get specific requests for NOT-sour this time, please.
Maybe I'll give it another shot this summer. But for now, I can't say how liberated I feel.
And no need to apologize for pointing out alternatives, MiniO. I SHOULD have fed my starter one more time and stuck it in a corner of the freezer (if I could have found a spare corner in the freezer).
-Elizabeth
(No microwave here, Rockfish)
Unless dried. Freezing blows many of the cells to bits, it would only be good for its pH then. Small jar under the vegitables or next to the eggs mixed with lots of flour, on the verge of being crumbs.
My 4 month old starters are reviving nicely. They are very potent in sour but needed a few refreshments to get the yeasts going. The aroma is great! I think we sometimes confuse the sour taste of some yeast by-products with those of the lacto-bacteria ones. Now that's a thought!
Well I'm off to the x-files for fun. Got a straight dough mixed up and it should look like a satellite when I get done with it. ...and I'm not talking round! I would rather experiment than decorate the place. I just don't feel like it. I'll give you a clue.... I got over 3 dozen ss korean chop sticks.... oops ....said too much.
Mini O