Sourdough

I was in a creative mood the other day and decided to try something different.  I have made semolina bread before but this time I decided to convert the starter over to a semolina based concoction along with a little whole wheat flour as well.  My wife had bought a nice ball of fresh mozzarella so I figured why not incorporate some cheese and throw in some roasted peppers and roasted potatoes as well.

The dough ended up very wet due to the roasted red peppers I used from a jar had a very high water content, so you may choose to add some additional flour as you are preparing the final dough.

The final bread came out excellent with a nice reddish tint and a great open and crispy crumb.  You could really taste the roasted peppers and the dough had an excellent sour tang.   The only thing I would change would be to fold the cheese in before shaping the final dough rather than before putting it in the fridge for its overnight rest.

Starter

3.7 ounces White Starter, 68% hydration

8 ounces Extra Fancy Durum Semolina  Flour (do not use the course grade)

2.5 ounces Whole Wheat Flour

8 ounces Water (room temperature)

Final Dough

16 oz. Starter from above (you will have extra starter so you need to weigh this)

11 oz. Water (90 degrees F)

13 ounces French Style Flour (from King Arthur Flour-this has a 11.5% Protein level but if you don't have you can substitute with All Purpose Flour)

5 ounces  Extra Fancy Durum Semolina  Flour

2 1/2 Tsp. Salt (sea salt or table salt)

1.6 oz. Roasted Red Peppers

6.2 oz. Fresh Mozzarella

5 oz. Potatoes (I had some left-over roasted potatoes, but you can use left over mashed potatoes or make some fresh or use the equivalent instant potato flakes)

Directions

Make the Starter by adding the water to your existing starter amount and mix for a minute to break it up.  Add the flours and mix for 1 to 2 minutes until thoroughly mixed.  Put in a lightly oiled bowl and loosely cover.  Keep at room temperature for 5-6 hours until the starter becomes bubbly and doubles in size (I usually do this the night before and let it sit overnight).  You can either use the starter right away, or cover tightly and refrigerate until ready to use.  If you don't plan on using it that day, you will have to refresh the new starter before using in the final dough.

For the final dough, using your stand mixer or by hand, mix the water with the new starter to break it up.

Add the flour, potatoes, salt, red peppers (chop them up into small pieces) and mix on the lowest speed for 2 minutes.  Let rest for 5 minutes.

Mix for 4 minutes more on medium speed, adding more flour if necessary to produce a slightly sticky ball of dough.

Remove dough to your lightly floured work surface and need for 1 minute and form into a ball.  Flatten into a rectangle and add the cheese and form dough into a ball.  (You can also skip this part and add the cheese when you are ready to form the final loaves.)

Leave uncovered for 15 minutes.

Do a stretch and fold and form into a ball again and cover with a clean moist cloth or oiled plastic wrap.

After another 10 minutes do another stretch and fold and let it rest again for another 10 - 15 minutes.  Do one last stretch and fold and then put it  into a lightly oiled bowl that has enough room so the dough can double overnight.

Let the dough sit in your bowl for 2 hours at room temperature.  It should only rise slightly at this point.  After the 2 hours are up put in your refrigerator for at least 12 hours or up to 3 days.

When ready to bake the bread take your bowl out of the refrigerator and let it sit at room temperature for around 2 hours.  After 2 hours shape the dough as desired being careful not to handle the dough too roughly so you don't de-gas it.

Place it in your bowl, banneton or shape into baguettes.

Let it sit at room temperature for 2 hours covered with oiled plastic wrap or a moist cloth.

Pre-heat oven with baking stone (I use one on bottom and one on top shelf of my oven), to 500 degrees F.

Slash loaves as desired and place empty pan in bottom shelf of oven.

Pour 1 cup of very hot water into pan and place loaves into oven.

Lower oven to 450 Degrees and bake for 25 - 35 minutes until bread is golden brown and internal temperature reaches 200 degrees.

Shut the oven off and leave the bread inside with the door slightly open for 10 minutes.  This will help dry the loaves out and keep the crust crunchy.

Let cool on cooling rack and enjoy!

This post has been submitted to the Yeast Spotting Site here: http://www.wildyeastblog.com/category/yeastspotting

Please visit my other blog at www.mookielovesbread.wordpress.com for some of my older recipes.

I took isand66's SD Avocado Bread, cut it half for one mishapen and poorly double Y chicken foot slashed loaf and then gussied it up even more than isand66 managed.  I didn't have enough bread flour so I subbed the missing with AP instead.  Since isand66 said the dough was very wet I cut 15 g from the amount in the recipe.  I also added 1 clove of minced garlic, 1/2 of a chopped fine green onion 1 tsp of finely chopped rosemary and 1 T of  finely chopped sun dried tomatoes packed in oil  - just like I do in  Focaccia Romana or Pizza Dough.  Also added about 20 g of sunflower seeds, holding  some back for the crust and also milled all the other grains from whole berries and used Pink Himalayan sea salt because ...eeerrr....pink is this year's cool bread color in case you didn't know and I do try to be cutting edge even if I can't take one and slash a loaf half decent for the life of me.  Since I got started late due to levain near death experience when it reached 1000 F for most of overnight and had to refresh it in the morning hoping for the best, I used PiPs easy half day bread technique for this bake instead of isand66's overnight retard.  No time!

Oddly, you would think that the avocado and yogurt would come through, at least tint the crumb a tiny bit green, but you can't taste or see them at all in the baked bread.  For some unexplained reason the bottom 1/2" of the crumb was closed but the rest was OK,  more open and fluffy.

The crust was crispy and crunchy when it came out of the oven due to leaving it in the oven for 10 minutes after turning the oven off and leaving the door open.  It softened and was chewy later.  The taste was very subtle, nicely savory.  The bread was baked on a stone and steamed the normal way with a Pyrex loaf pan half full of water and a 12" cast iron skillet heating up for 45 minutes at 500 F.  When the bread went in to bake a cup of hot water was tossed into the skillet.  The oven was down to 450 F for steaming 15 minutes.   Then the steaming apparatus was removed, the oven turned down again to 400 F,  the convection was turned on to bake until the center of the loaf was 208 F. 

A nice bread that I will make again.  I like breads with barley, WW and spelt taking up some room with the white but, I will skip the avocado next time.  I guess I will keep the yogurt to help wit the sour which was medium for this bread and pleasant.  It toasted nicely and was, of course, even better.  This is a good sandwich bread for sure.

Thanks to isand66 for the recipe and inspiration.   Check his blog for the other recipe details. 

After having such good luck with Phil's no stress recipe for 40% Rye and Caraway, I was additionally inspired by hanseata's seeded loaf's.  So, I thought I would try to marry up the two and take on my requirement for more whole grain and less white flour.  I was hoping that by adding some spelt and farro home ground berries to the rye replacing some of the white and adding some anise and fennel to the caraway, this new concoction would be a decent bread.  Plus, another important test, I could try out for the first time my new 'double Y chicken foot' slash!!!!

I also got a new way to final prove these ill shaped breads with a new bamboo containment thing-a-majig that has some doohickey handles for the containment challenged like myself.  Don't laugh.  This thing, what ever it is,  cost a buck.  We can't sleep at night worrying about these contraptions and they are real issues for us !!!  The used, so much better than new,  parchment paper is the crowning achievement of getting the loaves out of the trash bag and into the oven without disfiguring oneself unnecessarily - by hot oven.

The loaves sprang nicely.  The crust was crisp, crunchy yet chewy.  The taste of the bread was more earthy and more to my liking as expected.  The crumb wasn't quite as open as before probably due to the extra 20% whole grains in place of the white - but still OK.  The slash produced a wide flatish gash where the loaf pooled through lazily.  No ears - so fancy pants still needs some work before the double chicken foot slash is a keeper.

The disappointment was that I replaced some of the caraway seeds with the anise and fennel and the resulting seed taste was too slight and muddied.  I was too chicken to go for a bold taste with these seeds.  Don't you be !!! It would be much better just adding the same grams of anise and fennel as the caraway.  I think it would be perfect that way - if it didn't kill you of course ;-) 

Here are some more pics...

I really like it that you can make these breads in half a day if you have some decent rye sour built all the time.  Next time, and there will be one if only the for the double Y chicken foot slashs' sake, More seeds will be boldly incorporated.  I think I am still making progress.

Thanks again Phil and hanseata.