Bread!

So, about 2 weeks ago I was at my parent's house for the weekend and my dad made some sourdough bread using his traditional starter that's lived in the fridge, used off and on for the past eternity... He made some pretty delicious bread, but usually when he makes something, I think to myself, "I wonder if I could make that better?" So here's my attempt at doing that with bread.

I started the week out with the goo that would eventually become my starter - 100g flour (both rye and white) and 100g water. After a few days of patiently waiting and feeding the starter, it became a bubbly bowl of sour smelling goo - perfect! So now it was finally time to start the bread-making process.

Now the real fun begins! I followed this awesome recipe for Norwich Sourdough because I'd seen on some forums that it was an easy recipe that worked well for pretty much everyone - sounds perfect to me for my first attempt from scratch... So I mixed up the dough and got to take out some of my aggression at the week on the flour and water that made this most basic of bread styles. And let me say, there was quite a bit of aggression - a botched lesson or two early in the week, snow day on Thursday (when we need all the time we can get), and restless kids on Friday. Why did I never believe people who said being an adult was hard? I certainly never used to think i would start hoping that I didn't have the day off because there's too much to do - in fact I know I made fun of my parents for thinking that... But once my aggression was all let out, I was left with a beautiful bowl of bread dough.

After letting this bowl of loose dough sit for 30 minutes (all the "pros" call this autolyse), I added in the salt and mixed it a bit more until it was a nice gluteney consistency. Then it was time for the first cycle of fermentations to let the yeast start growing and getting nice and sour. I took a little taste at this point and was happy to say i could taste some of the yeasty flavor starting to come through. At this point I put out the dough and let it sit near my heater to rise and develop a nice network of bubbles. To help this out, I folded the dough ever 50 minutes or so. I always wondered how professional bakers were able to get those nice big air pockets throughout the dough. Apparently this is the answer, but we'll have to wait and see how well it works.

2.5 hours later and the dough was ready to pre-shape before letting it rest over night. I'm thinking I might want some pizza sometime this week, so I set aside a little dough to use for that, and then shaped two nice battons out of the rest and let it sit around for another hour or so to start rising.

 

The bread was tucked into it's bed of flour-dusted cloth and covered up for its nap before being stuck in the fridge so both it and I could sleep for the night. I was a little concerned as I went to bed that something would go horribly wrong overnight and it would overproof or something, but it was all for naught as when I woke up in the morning the bread was looking beautiful and a bit larger.

 

After setting out and warming up for another hour and a half or so it was finally time to bake. I had the oven pre-heated nice and hot with my "pizza stone" (really a giant ceramic saucer that you can buy for out-door pots... nice and cheap but serves the same function) and a container for steam water. I flipped the dough onto a board and slashed the top - wielding a sharp knife and cutting into things is another great way to take out stress, I quickly discovered.

I slid them into the oven onto my stone and tossed in a bunch of water for steam. Ever 5 minutes or so I threw another cup of water in to keep it full of steam so the bread could get a nice oven spring. 20 minutes later I could see that my steaming had paid off - the loaves had risen beautifully and stretched out along my slashes. Yet another 30 minutes more in the oven and the bread was finally done. It came out looking golden brown and delicious.

Sadly, I couldn't cut into it right away as it was way too hot and needed to rest before I could eat it :( So, it was off to a rehearsal for me. Finally, hours later, I got to cut into the bread and look to see how well it had turned out, as well as taste it's bready sour deliciousness.

I was so happy to see it come out like the professionally baked bread I so admire. The crumb is beautifully uneven and airy - something I don't think my father has ever pulled off with bread (score one to me). I guess all the folding gently instead of vigorous kneading really payed off. The crust is a nice thickness and also is amazingly crunchy and golden brown. The bread itself has a wonderful chewy and moist consistency - just what I hope for with bread. It also has a great light sour flavor to it. I think I'm definitely going to enjoy making toast and sandwiches with this bread for the week to come, and there's no way I will ever have to buy sourdough from the store again. Next step? Getting one of those professional-style cloth lined proofing baskets to make my bread even more awesome. Eating a nice thick chunk almost makes me forget about the stresses of life and teaching.