Sourdough Bread At Last

So this is the last day of the sourdough bread saga (for now, until I do some other flavors and such). I took the little loaves out of the refrigerator at 10:30am. It is now 2:40pm and the loaves just went into the oven at 500f with some "steam"(I have a really old pan that I sit in the bottom of my oven-it's electric-and let it heat with the oven and the baking stone, when the bread has gone in I dump some already boiling water into the hot pan in the bottom of the oven and then shut the door quickly. I check after 10 minutes and then remove the pan if necessary and turn the oven down at this point). Here's exactly what I did:

Sourdough finale:
-Pull your loaves out of the refrigerator 4 hours before you are going to bake them. Leave them bagged or wrapped in plastic wrap and let them just sit out. If it's very hot where you are this may take a bit less than 4 hours.
-About half hour before you want to bake your loaves, heat your oven with the baking stone (if you have one, if not, turn your loaves out onto a sheet pan sprinkled with cornmeal or polenta) to 500f, or as hot as it will go. If you are going to use a pan for steam, heat this in the oven at this time as well. Get some water simmering.
-Once everything is in place, gently turn your loaves out of their baskets (if you free-formed them, you can bake them right on that sheet pan) onto a peel or other surface coated with coarse ground cornmeal or polenta (this aids in sliding the bread off the surface and onto the baking stone). Slash your loaves however you like (I just did one long slash diagonally down the center), slide them into the oven, pour your hot water into your pan and shut the door to allow the oven to steam up (do this all with caution, if this scares you or you think your oven won't like it, then just maybe use a spray bottle to get a bit of steam going). Leave the door shut for 10 minutes. Turn your oven down to 425f and check the loaves again in 15 minutes, they may need to be rotated. I keep the loaves baking for a total of 45 minutes, with rotating and checking on them about every 15 minutes. When they are a lovely deep brown (I like my breads a deep golden) and they feel light for their size, remove them from the oven and cool to room temperature.I was very pleased with the crust and the crumb of this bread. The crust was chewy and crunchy and the crumb opened up nicely with irregular holes. The flavor of this was actually very light. There are only very faint sour undertones to the bread and it is delicious. I am sure with a little more time Dudley will develop a bit more flavor as he is fed and ages. Yum!
Happy baking!

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Sourdough Bread: Part 2 (Spawn of Dudley Grows Up)

(snug as a bug in a rug, cute little Dudley spawns) This bread does indeed take 3 days to make(actually it can be done in two, but the second day is a long one), but it is well worth it. Yesterday I made Dudley (the starter) into a firm starter aka Spawn of Dudley (which is just a less hydrated form of the starter). That firm starter rose at room temperature until it was doubled in size (about 4 hours) and then it went into the refrigerator overnight to slow down the yeast and develop flavor (slower fermentation aids in flavor development). That was day one. Today, the firm starter will join up with a bit more flour, water and salt and it will be one step closer to being bread. This is the recipe for Basic Sourdough Bread adapted from Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread. You will need:

Basic Sourdough Bread (makes two 1 1/2 pound loaves):

firm starter, removed from the refrigerator one hour before you want to mix up the dough, and cut up into 8-10 pieces, covered with plastic wrap (this will help remove the chill from the starter)
1 pound 4 1/4 ounces (4 1/2 cups) unbleached bread flour or high-gluten flour
1/2 ounce (2 tsp) salt
12 to 14 ounces water (the book calls for lukewarm, but I tend to use room temperature or even a little cooler)
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-Place the flour and salt in a large mixing bow, add the starter and enough water to bring everything together as you mix it (you can use a spoon, your hands, or a mixer with a dough hook on low speed).

-Turn the dough out onto a work surface sprinkled with flour and knead by hand for 12 -15 minutes, adjusting the water and flour as you go.
It will look like this right out of the bowl:
At about 5 minutes into kneading your dough should look about like this:
And after 15 minutes of kneading it will look like this:

You want a somewhat firm and tacky dough. You'll feel it change as you are kneading it, it will become more elastic as the gluten develops and smoother as the flour becomes more hydrated. Alternately you use the mixer with a dough hook and mix for 4 minutes on medium speed, allow the dough to rest for 8-10 minutes and then mix for another 4 minutes). Place the kneaded dough into a lightly oiled large bowl, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it ferment like that for 3 to 4 hours or until nearly doubled in size:
First in the bowl at 2:55pm (Pacific):The growth of the spawn at about 6:55pm:
-Gently turn the dough out of the bowl and divide it into two pieces (about 22 ounces each).
Shape the dough as you would like. I'm using oval shaped bannetons (which are proofing baskets...you can get expensive ones or you can go to goodwill and get some baskets. Either will work, you just have to line them with cloth-I'm using "flour sack towels" and then dust generously with flour) so I'm shaping my dough into stumpy batards that will fit into the bannetons.Be careful while you shape so as not to knock out too much of the gas that has formed in the dough. You want to degas as little as possible so your sourdough will have lovely fairly open crumb. Also note, that if you are using bannetons or baskets to place the bread in seam side up, make sure your seams are fairly secure. Mmmmm, I can't wait until this is baked tomorrow. You can also do free form loaves, just make sure the sheet pan you are going to have them rise on is dusted with cornmeal or semolina flour. When your loaves are comfortably nestled in their rising apparatus, mist the tops with some pan spray or oil and loosely cover with plastic wrap, or I'll be placing mine in this handy dandy huge 10 gallon zip lock bag (I'm not sure where he got them from, but G found them for me for bread and they rock).
-At this point, you can do one of two things. You can proof your loaves for 2 to 3 hours to bake the same day, or you can retard them in the refrigerator overnight for more flavor development. I prefer to retard them overnight, so into the fridge go the spawn of Dudley, and we will continue with this tomorrow! The first step tomorrow will be to remove the loaves from the refrigerator about 4 hours before you plan on baking them. Fingers crossed that the spawn of Dudley does well and makes some nice loaves...

Happy kneading!
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Spawn of Dudley! (or beginning a sourdough bread from the starter...)

So, I'm thinking Dudley is mature enough to reproduce. I'm hoping he's got enough character developed, but if not yet, well, then next batch should be better. I'll be using Peter Reinhart's book The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread to guide me along the way. So, what you want to do is, before you feed your starter, take out 4 ounces (about 2/3 cup) and set it aside. Then weigh out 8 ounces of your starter and feed it as usual. You will also need: 4 1/2 ounces of unbleached bread flour (or high gluten flour if you have it) and 1 to 2 ounces of water (1/8 to 1/4 cup).

(4 ounces of Dudley, 4 1/2 ounces bread flour, 1 to 2 ounces h2o)
This is for the "Firm Starter" which is just a fancy way of saying a less hydrated bit of starter. You want to mix these ingredients together to form a ball. You only need knead (I've been waiting to use that) this for a little bit until the flour is uniformly hydrated and there are no discernable lumps.
You will then put your spawn of -insert the name of your starter here- in a container that allows it to at least double in size (spray the container with some pan spray), cover the container and allow it to sit out for 4 hours at room temperature (or until it doubles in size..it may take longer or shorter than 4 hours).
After which you will put it in the refrigerator overnight. I'll post photos of the Spawn of Dudley in about 4 hours before he goes into the fridge.

(when we last saw Spawn of Dudley, he was looking like this:)


(and now a bit shy of four hours later, he looks like this:)
(that is his proud papa "Dudley" behind him. Dudley tends to triple in size or more now when I feed him).

Stay tuned tomorrow for part two of the Sourdough Bread!

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