I made some 'no knead' French sticks this weekend out of a batch I had
grown for English muffins. I started off Friday morning feeding my cold
starter up for a 8 hour 'wake up' grow period with a sour or long
ferment time at 72F planned, then fed it milk and AP flour for an
overnight grow at the same 72F.
All is fine and I am about to do the final grow in the morning when I
got an early morning call informing us we had a beautiful cottage up in
Northern Canada open for my wife and I this weekend for her 3 days off,
outdoor hot tub, indoor whirlpool tub, fireplace, BBQ, etc... so I
packed the crock of sponge in the trunk and away we went. The crock
stayed in 55F until Sunday when I woke it up again. It was really nice
and sour smelling so I went for a 'no knead' French Bread instead of the
muffins.
The bread recipe in The Joy of Cooking did call for long ferments and a
milk base of a half cup, just less milk than the one cup the muffin
recipe called for so I tried it anyway.
I had about 4 cups of sponge made with one cup milk at the double point,
added one cup warm water with 1 tbsp butter melted in it and 1 tbsp
sugar to that. I then made a well shape in a large bowl of 3 cups flour
and 2 tsp sugar and 2 tsp salt and poured the liquid in. I stirred it
up to a really soft dough, adding just enough flour to take the serious
sticky off as I am stirring, (just enough flour so the dough ball pulls
away from the sides as it is stirred) then let it set covered with a
damp cloth in a pre-warmed oven for 2 hours. I was ready to leave it
longer if needed to start rising, but it had just about doubled already.
It did stick to the cloth and bowl a bit, but not to bad.
At that point I punched it down and put it out on the dusted with flour
counter, cut it in half and made rectangles by stretching it and
pressing it light.
I then tried two loaf shapes, one a single scroll roll and one a double
scroll roll just to see which one shaped better. I used scissors to
snip diagonal slices in the top and brushed it with a mix of egg white
and water near the end of the baking. I let these rise for about an
hour and a bit or until the were not quite doubled in volume. It was
interesting, they both went the same height, just one loaf was fatter.
neither one 'spread'. I like the single roll shape better I think.
I warmed the oven to 400, put a pan of boiling water on the bottom shelf
and baked for 15 minutes before lowering to 350 for another 30 minutes.
My act of punching it down and pressing it into the rectangle makes the
crumb airy, but no big monster holes. I think the milk, water and
butter mix make a softer crumb than plain water. I personally prefer
bread that has the big holes punched out of it, so does my wife, so that
is what I aimed for on these loaves.
It turned out really nice! A thick, really chewy crust with a nice airy
soft crumb. Wicked as garlic bread and for steak sandwiches.
There are two photos of these loaves in my photo album site's featured
album of 'Today's Photo'.
http://www.mikeromain.shutterfly.com
What have you folks baked lately?
Mike
Mike Romain wrote:
I am really pleased with my homemade sourdough starter that is now 8
months old. It has become nicely predictable so I can end up with the
type of bread I am aiming for that day. I am learning the times vs temp
of it's moods and tastes also.
Yesterday I made a couple sour 'tasting' loaves with some dinner rolls
and while that was rising, another batch I also gave a couple long room
temp grows to for the sour to make English Muffins got fried up. Mmmm.
I think the English Muffins are one of the best uses for sourdough
starter besides a loaf, our extended family loves them so a batch is a
weekly thing.
I/we also like sourdough pizza and made a nice one the other day.
The photos of both endeavors is the featured album in my photo site.
http://www.mikeromain.shutterfly.com
Mike