Testing, one, two, three, testing
It is a sad truth that supporting oneself can seriously compete for the time we want to spend on the really good stuff. Last week I squoze in some shopping between business errands. That trip to the bulk bins let me get some rice flour to help cotton release dough during proofing and barley to attempt home made malt. Although I am a child of the sixties, I never could get grains to sprout uniformly and this test was more of the same. Some grains go ahead and sprout and others just go to funk.
As unsuccessful as the malt test was, the rice flour test was super-successful. That flour is like a zillion little ball bearings that will send things zipping around the counter and floor with just a tap. A tub of fermenting dough hit the floor and when the bread baker's canine apprentice came running, her hind overtook her frenzied fore in a clatter of claws. She's not the kind of dog to feel embarrassment at indignity, just some disappointment that I was quicker to recover than she was!
Got Bread?
But back to the rice flour; no dough sticking to the cotton towel at all. Rice flour does stick to the top of your loaf giving it a grainy texture. I'm wondering if the linen or synthetic proofing cloth are nonstick all on their own or do they need less flouring?
The goal for my weekend bread baking was to use notes from Susan's Sourdough Under Glass and my newly purchased pizza stone for some small boules and also create a multigrain 4# Sourdough ala Mountaindog. I don't have a big pyrex bowl but I have very large stainless bowls that my girls used for sledding when they were small. I believe they are 13 quart and they perfectly cover a large pizza stone. Too bad, I didn't get to view the oven-spring!
Small Sourdough Boules
WW Sourdough 4#er
WW Sourdough Crumb
3 7/8# Sourdough Loaf
I spent about 20 hours on a slow fermentation, leaving the dough refrigerated overnight and at a cool room temperature for an additional 8 hours the next day. The basic formula is Thom Leonard's Country French increasing the proportions of rye and whole wheat flours to taste. I use Pendleton Mills flour and used a 12% protein pizza blend white for this loaf.
This was a fun process and I'm getting no complaints from the test consumer group!
Comments
...to find out where you live. If we can get past the dog, your bread is toast...er, well, I mean history.
Anonymous
<psst, anonymous.....hate to blow your cover, but.....um....our names appear in our posts>........I do like how you think, though!
Believe me, I know our names appear there......! I just wanted to say something different this time. The dog made me do it.
Sue (aka Anonymous)
'nuff said!
and if your ankles get wet you've missed my place and need to go back a few miles! Thanks for the encouraging words- you're welcome any time!
Those are absolutely beautiful! You certainly have the heat/time ratio down pat. The dog looks happy also, like he knows he is part of the QC team!
Eric
Redivy, you can't imagine how hard it is for me not to blow by all this bread stuff and just yammer away about dogs (and horses, cows, kitties, zebras...oops, almost forgot, trout too--regular farmyard around here.) But that would be a shame because your sourdough is so pretty, too. Looks like you are well over any 'fear of slashing'. Everything looks just right about your bread, though I suppose it might be improved by eyeballs and a moustache :-{D...plus the pooch probably thinks it's high time the loaf hit the floor again. And the boule is in such an elegant bowl! Hearty cheers!
Love those boules, they look beautiful! Nice rise, slashes, and crumb...
Like browndog, I can't resist an opportunity for puppy talk...
Your pooch's dough stealing attempt reminds me of my New Year's Eve dinner prep. I was making a version of Floyd's buttermilk cluster as clover-leaf dinner rolls in muffin tins, I had about 2 dozen rolls rising in their tins near my woodstove, when I forgot about the puppy being let out of where I had him gated in the kitchen...by the time I realized where he was he had already eaten about 10 of the raw rolls! Boy was I worried he'd be sick that night but it didn't seem to phase him at all. Here he is not long after (he's the innocent looking one in back with his head on his sister's back).
Okay, you guys started this...
And I've been trying so hard to be good. Mountaindog, I thought you had Bernese, but you never know for sure til you see them! Beautiful critters, and I LOVE dogs in heaps. Eating raw dough has always seemed like quite the potential crisis to me, though I've never had the anxiety of it actually happening here. I recall buyng hay at a farm where the pigs had access to HUGE billowing mounds of dough they'd got from some faux-bread outlet. I'm talking what must have been hundreds of pounds, taking over the feed trough. Talk about sour-dough. It looked alive, all right, and not in a happy way. Truly one of the more bizarre sights I have ever seen.
All-right, the famous Brown Dog! Looks just like the little statue! Very cute...
Yes, I was very afraid that all of that raw yeasty dough was going to give my boy bloat, a known problem with big barrel-chested breeds like Berners. We watched him like a hawk until we were sure he was OK. I have to think twice before I put anything to rise near the woodstove now!
OK, got that out of my system, back to bread...
It is amazing how much the figurine looks like your pup! Same expression.
are able to eat unlimited amounts of dough with no ill effects. Thanks for confirming that theory of mine. Also, thievery is not considered a character flaw among their kind.
Chelsea successfully nabbed the dangling end of a pretzel under construction a few weeks ago and has been lurking, looking for another opportunity ever since. I'm glad your friends made an appearance!