I love bread! A wedge of hot, crusty, fresh from the oven treat with just a bit of butter, can be better than the meal it accompanies. Yes, I love bread, as long as someone else is baking it. As a kid, I watched my grandmother bake bread all the time, however, it has remained a challenge for me. So much so, that when my cousin the baker told me that bread is the primary profit center in a bakery, it made me rethink my plans to open a neighborhood bakery. So when my online baking community challenged me make my own French Country Sour Dough Bread from scratch?! you can only imagine my response.
'Ugh!!!' I complained for about two weeks. I thought about skipping the challenge. But since you are only allow to miss 3 in a year, and my busy season was about to begin, I decided to put on my game face, lace up my apron and stare down my nemesis.
Step one of the Challenge, was to create your own leavening, called a "Starter." In Sour Dough, you don't use packaged yeast, but instead you grow your own yeast in a brew of flour, water and maybe a little honey. Some sourdough Starters are decades if not hundreds of years old. The older the Starter, the stronger the yeasty-sour taste your bread will take on. If you've tried the bread at the Wharf in San Francisco, then you know what century old Starter tastes like.
"Bubble Bubble", "Toil" and "Trouble" are the names I have affectionately given to my Starter creations. Yes, I have now thrice started my Starter: the first, I'll name him "Toil", was with King Arthur's Whole Wheat Bread Flour--after 4 whole days of tending, it spawned not one bubble. My second attempt,"Trouble" was made with with Red Mills' Whole Grain Bread Flour--it grew for a day or so and then died. After reading many online baking blogs, I made my last attempt. "Bubble Bubble" was made with Pillsbury's Unbleached, Wheat Bread Flour, seemed to work, because for the first time, it was bubbling, although barely.
An important thing to note is that once you create your Starter, you can use it for a myriad of baking recipes from pancakes to biscuits to cakes. You can use pretty much any bread flour, but if you plan to starte a Starter tradition and keep it for 100 years, you may want to just use white flour as it is the most versatile.
I followed the recipe below, which I warn you takes about a week. It actually took me about two-weeks it get the starter right. The end result, was not exactly the tall round loaf I was expecting, but more like a dense, but delicious panini bread that made a great sandwich and was also delicious dipped in olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Best of all though, I overcame my fear of bread! I believe that greater things than this you will achieve.
Happy Baking!
A few tips before you begin:
- This recipe takes approximately 1 week to make. If you begin on Monday, you'll be ready to bake on Saturday.
- The recipe below, from the Daring Baker Challenge uses very precise measurements which I found to be confusing. Many experience bakers will simply say, use equal weights of flour and water.
- Make sure your water is warm but not hot, 95-100*F. Too hot and you will kill yeast, too cold and you'll slow the fermentation process.
- Keep your starter in a warm draft free place. A gas oven, or electric oven with the light on, is an ideal place for growing your leavening.
Step One: Growing Your Starter
Day 1:Ingredients
4 1/2 tablespoons (70 ml) (40 gm/1 1⁄2 oz) stoneground breadmaking whole-wheat or graham flour 3 tablespoons (45 ml) water
Total volume: about 1⁄2 cup (115 ml) (3 oz/85 gm)
Directions:
1. In a Tupperware or plastic container, mix the flour and water into a paste.
2. Set the lid on top gently, cover with a plastic bag, to prevent messes in case it grows more than
expected!
3. Set somewhere warm (around 86 F if possible). I put mine in my gas oven, the pilot is enough to keep it consistently warm.
Day 2:
Ingredients
4 1/2 tablespoons (70 ml) (40 gm/1 1⁄2 oz) stoneground breadmaking whole-wheat or graham flour 3 tablespoons (45 ml) water
1/2 cup (115 ml) (3 oz/85 gm) starter from Day 1
Total volume: about 1 cup (230 ml) (6 oz/170 gm)
Directions:
1. Stir the flour and water into the mixture from Day 1, cover, and return to its warm place.
Day 3:
Ingredients
4 1/2 tablespoons (70 ml) (40 gm/1 1⁄2 oz) stoneground breadmaking whole-wheat or graham flour 4 teaspoons (20 ml) water
1 cup (230 ml) (6 oz/170 gm) starter from Day 2
Total volume: about 1-1⁄3 cup (320 ml) (230 gm/8-1/10 oz)
Directions:
1. Stir the flour and water into the mixture from Day 2, cover, and return to its warm place.
Ingredients
3/4 cup plus 11⁄2 tablespoons (205 ml) (120 gm/4 1⁄4 oz) unbleached all-purpose flour 1/2 cup less 4 teaspoons (100 ml) water
1-1⁄3 cup (320 ml) (230 gm/8 oz) starter from Day 3
Total volume: about 2-2⁄3 cup (625 ml) (440 gm/151⁄2 oz)
Directions:
1. Stir the flour and water into the mixture from Day 3, cover, and return to its warm place. At this point it should be bubbling and smell yeasty. If not, repeat this process for a further day or so until it is!
Step Two: French Country Bread
Stage 1: Refreshing the leaven
Ingredients
1 cup less 1 tablespoon (225 ml) (160 gm/5 2⁄3 oz) wheat Leaven Starter
6 tablespoons less 1 teaspoon (85 ml) (50 gm/13⁄4 oz) stoneground bread making whole-wheat or graham flour
1 cup plus 2 teaspoons (250 ml) (150 gm/5 1⁄3 oz) unbleached all purpose flour
1/2 cup (120 ml) water
Production Leaven Total volume: 2-3⁄4 cups plus 4 teaspoons (680 ml) (480 gm /1 lb 1 oz)
Directions:
1. Mix everything into a sloppy dough. It may be fairly stiff at this stage. Cover and set aside for 4 hours, until bubbling and expanded slightly.
Stage 2: Making the final dough
Ingredients:
3/4 cup less 1 teaspoon (175 ml) (100 gm/3 1⁄2 oz) stoneground breadmaking whole-wheat or graham flour, plus more for dusting
2 cups plus 2 tablespoons (510 ml) (300gm/10 1⁄2 oz) unbleached all-purpose flour
11⁄4 teaspoons (71⁄2 ml) (7 gm/1⁄4 oz) sea salt or 2⁄3 teaspoon (31⁄3 ml) (3 gm/1⁄8 oz) table salt
1 1⁄4 cups (300 ml) water
1 3⁄4 cups (425 ml) (300 gm/10 1⁄2 oz) production leaven – this should leave some (1 cup) for your next loaf.
Total volume: about 6 cups less 2 tablespoons 1415 ml (1007 gm/35 1⁄2 oz/2 lb 31⁄2 oz)
Directions:
2. Smooth your dough into a circle, then scoop your production leaven into the centre. You want to fold the edges of the dough up to incorporate the leaven, but this might be a messy process. Knead for a couple minutes until the leaven is fully incorporated in the dough. See demonstration of Step 3 here.
3. Spread some water on a clean bit of your work surface and lay the dough on top. Cover with an upturned bowl, lining the rim of the bowl with a bit of water. Leave for an hour, so that the gluten can develop and the yeasts can begin to aerate the dough.
4. Once your dough has rested, you can begin to stretch and fold it. Using wet hands and a dough scraper, stretch the dough away from you as far as you can without breaking it and fold it back in on itself. Repeat this in each direction, to the right, towards you, and to the left. This will help create a more ‘vertical’ dough, ready for proofing. See a demonstration here.5. Heavily flour a banneton/proofing basket with whole wheat flour and rest your dough, seam side up, in the basket.
**Note: If you're like me, you've never heard of a banneton/proofing basket. Good news! I looked it up for you. Here you can use a large collander, line it with a dishcloth/tea-towel and heavily dust the dry towel with flour.**
6. Put the proofing basket in a large plastic bag, inflate it, and seal it. Set aside somewhere warm for 3-5 hours, or until dough has expanded a fair bit. It is ready to bake when the dough responds to a gently poke by slowly pressing back to shape.
7. Preheat the oven to hot 425°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment, then carefully invert the dough onto the sheet. I like to put the baking sheet on top of the basket, then gently flip it over so as to disturb the dough as little as possible. Make 2-3 cuts on top of the loaf and bake for 10 minutes. **Note: if your dough is really thin, you can bake in a deep pot or loaf pan.
8. Reduce heat to 400°F and bake for another 30-40 minutes.
9. Remove from oven. Cool on a cooling rack at least 10 minutes to allow moisture to evaporate.
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