Everyday sourdough sandwich loaf

Ingredients:

100-130 grams well-fed sourdough starter
325-350 grams water
500 grams of flour (can you various ratios of bread flour to whole wheat to etc)
15-20 grams oil (can use neutral oil (Avocado, vegetable) or could use olive oil)
15-20 grams of honey
10 grams fine sea salt

I’ve been making a weekly loaf for the past year or so. With this recipe, you definitely have some leeway on adjusting the types of flours along with some of the enrichments (oil and honey). It is also a fairly forgiving recipe I feel (or maybe I just do it regularly enough that I’ve grown accustomed to it). The above recipe makes 1 loaf (in a 8.5 inch x 4.5 inch loaf pan). This is also a no-knead recipe. The loaf can be made ahead of time and then stored to continue to ferment and develop in the fridge for 24-48 hours. Typically I will bake it ~24-36 hours after forming the loaf.

Combine the water, well-fed starter, 500 grams of flour (my current combination is 350 grams bread flour, 50 grams of semolina flour and 100 grams of whole wheat flour), oil and honey in a mixing bowl. I use a spatula and stir and make sure everything is well incorporated together (about 2-4 minutes of mixing usually).
Let sit (auto-lyse) for anywhere from 30-90 minutes covered.
Slowly incorporate the salt – I usually add a little bit at a time and using a wet hand knead the salt until well incorporated.
Cover and let rest 45-60 minutes
Perform a stretch and fold (using a moist hand, grab dough at 12 o’clock position and pull upwards toward ceiling. Without allowing the dough to rip, pull it down towards 6 o’clock. Turn bowl 1/4 counter-clockwise and repeat above and continue until back to original position. Can continue to do this to tighten dough (another full rotation). Optional would to flip dough over at end (should have smooth ball). Cover
Wait another 45-60 minutes (dependent on room temp)
Repeat stretch and fold an additional 3 times (total of 4). Sometimes the dough will look mature and ready after 3 stretch and folds and that is fine as well.
Dump dough out on well floured surface. Using bench scraper, gather the dough (bringing each corner to center) and then flip dough to have a nice ball. Cover with tea towel and let sit for 20 minutes.
Stretch and flatten dough out into a large rectangle. Bring the left side of the dough and fold to the center line along the vertical axis. Then fold from the right edge to the center overlapping – envelope fold. Then grasp dough closest to you and roll it away from you creating a cylinder. Tuck the ends of the dough underneath to create a smooth surface for each end.
Using a bench scrapper lift the dough into a well oiled loaf pan (in my case a 8.5 inch x 4.5 inch loaf pan)
Place this in a bag (can also add some oil to top of dough and cover with saran wrap) and let rise for ~1.5 hours (depending on temperature in kitchen).
Place in refrigerator (~12-48 hours).
Turn oven on to 400 F. Place pan with water in lower rack of oven
Remove dough from fridge. Sprinkle flour on top of bread and smooth. Using sharp knife, score the bread.
Bake for 20 minutes at 400F
Remove the water container (be careful not to splash hot water onto glass of oven door as it may crack – I use a tea towel to cover the glass while removing the water container).
Bake additional 30-35 minutes until golden brown (bread temp ~200 F). I usually just bake an additional 33 or 34 minutes as it seems to work for my oven.
Turn bread out on cooling rack and let cool fully before slicing.

Visual instructions:

Sourdough Ciabatta

Aside from regular sourdough bread, I had been kind of wondering what else to do with my starter. Luckily one of my FB groups are full of cooks and someone shared a sourdough ciabatta recipe they liked. I figured I’d give it go. The original recipe is here: https://breadtopia.com/sourdough-ciabatta/

I didn’t have the requisite 550g of starter ready but had 300g of starter so adjusted the recipe accordingly. When I was transcribing from the internet to a piece of paper (yes I’m still old school and typically don’t just look at a screen for my recipes but actually write them down on paper), I accidentally wrote my 2 so it kinda looked like a 7. So when I was weighing out the water, I accidentally did about 50% more than I had anticipated using. I then had to do a bunch of math to try to even things out. I’m not even going to try putting the actual recipe values on here (just go look at the original recipe). I’ll just go through my process and how it came out.

IMG_20200523_143645 — Sourdough on top of rest of mixture

IMG_20200523_150153 — After initial mix before adding in the extra water (after about 20 minutes of kneading)

IMG_20200523_151059 — Added the extra water and tried to incorporate

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Parker House rolls (my variation)

I learned about the famous Parker House rolls sometime ago while watching one of the many food shows that I use to waste my time. This morning since I was up at 4 AM due to jet lag, I decided to try my hand at them (also because I didn’t think we had anything in the house for breakfast except for eggs and I figured that some bread would go well with eggs).

I ended up loosely following a recipe from King Arthur Flour, but made some changes based on what I had in my pantry.

Ingredients:

3 cups flour (I used a mixture of bread and AP)
2 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
3 Tbsp sugar
1 1/4 tsp salt
3 Tbsp butter
1 cup milk (I used rice drink as that is all we have in the house)
1 large egg (mine was more of a medium sized egg)
3 Tbsp melted butter

The overall recipe was fairly easy. Mix all of the above ingredients save for the last 3 Tbsp of melted butter – that was for later. I did slightly warm up the rice drink with the egg whisked in to get it closer to room temperature. Initially (maybe due to lack of sleep), I only used 2 cups of flour and couldn’t figure out why the dough was so wet and seemed to be more consistent with a cake mixture. I eventually realized my mistake and added the extra cup of flour and it still came together okay though was a very wet dough (I suspect from the all the butter).

IMG_20180823_054937 — Forgot to add the 3rd cup of flour so it was a mushy mess.

IMG_20180823_060950 — Much better with the 3rd cup of flour

I popped the dough into a lightly greased bowl and placed it in my oven’s proof setting for 80 minutes (originally it was set at 90 minutes but I took it out a little early). The dough rose quite nicely.

The King Arthur recipe calls to shape the dough into the orginial recipe shape (as seen here). I decided to do my own thing.

I spread the dough out into a roughly 8″ x 12″ rectangle. I took some of the melted butter and generously brushed it over the entire dough rectangle.

I then divided the dough into 16 pieces. Each piece was then individually rolled into more or less a ball like shape and placed in some cast iron pans.

I then let it rise for abour 40 minutes (the recipe says to let them puff up and not double at about 45-60 minutes).

In a 350 F pre-heated oven I popped both the cast iron pans into the center of the oven. The original recipe called to bake for 20-25 minutes until brown but mine ended up taking closer to 30 minutes (maybe like 29 minutes). I then brushed the top of the bread with the remaining melted butter.

Overall I was impressed with how they came out. The inside dough structure was soft and pillowy and there was a bit of crunch from the outside of the bread. This is definitely something I can do again in the future.

-StewsCat

Bread boules!!

A few weeks ago I decided to make some bread for my lunch (I’d bring the bread with some deli meat and sliced cheese – very European I know). I decided to just make two boules and bring one for a co-worker who has asked for me to bring some bread for her previously (little did I know that she’d be out sick). I went back and found an old recipe and tweaked it slightly.

Ingredients:

Preferment:

350 g bread flour
364 g water
3 g yeast

Remaining ingredients

350 g bread flour
266 g water
14 g salt

I mixed up the preferment and let it sit for about 30 minutes. I then added that to the remaining ingredients above. I mixed these up thoroughly and then let it sit for the water to absorb before I kneaded it.

I then proceeded to knead it for approximately 15 minutes until it was relatively smooth and I could do the “window” test – not perfectly but close enough. I then set it in a bowl, covered it and used the proof setting on the oven to allow it to rise (double in size).

I pulled the dough out, did the knead and fold method a few times with 30 minutes in between before dividing the dough into 2.

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Marathon Training Week 9

Week 9 had some highs and a lot of lows. As you’ll see below, I ended up only doing 2 runs the entire week. For my scheduled Tuesday and Thursday runs I can blame work for not getting them in. Normally I get off work around 6 but due to various circumstances on both those days I had to stay late and was just too tired to get a run in when I got home. I’m not sweating it too much.

The high of the week was actually hitting the 18 mile distance and feeling somewhat okay afterwards. I keep telling myself that for the actual race I’ll be doing an additional 8.2 miles so I better feel “okay” after an 18-miler.

Here’s a summary of last week’s running.

( ) = # of miles on my plan

Tuesday – 0.00 (3)

Thursday – 0.00 (8) – in reality, 8 miles was a bit ambitious considering 18 the following day.

Friday – 18 (18)

Saturday – 4.05 (5)

Sunday – 0.00 (4)

Weekly Total – 22.05 miles (37)

My long run was taken along the American River Trail again. This time I went further and traversed the bridge past William Pond Park. I ran over this bridge when I did the Run The Parkway Half. There were tons of Canadian Geese out. They were just all over the place.

It is amazing how quickly the water level drops after no rain for a few weeks. Not sure when we’re going to get more rain but I feel like we need some more over the next 1-2 months to feel okay with being out of the drought.

My last run I ran past this tree with these bright vibrant yellow flowers. Now, 2 weeks later the flowers are still there but they appear so much more dull.

So I crossed the bridge and explored some new territory. I stopped at a bathroom/water fountain area that was cool but a bit isolated. I pictured a horror movie where I was being chased by some masked villain. Luckily this was only about a 1/4 mile detour.

Even though my 18 miler was slower than my 16 miler, I think it is good progress. It is amazing how I slowed so much on the 18 miler even though for the 16 miler, I had put in some tough fast hill miles the night before the 16 miler. Strange how the body works.

Sunday I woke up in a funk and just wasn’t feeling it (it = life).

So rather than get a run in that may have helped my mood, I went out to dinner for some cocktails and pizza. I had the notion of doing a few night miles after dinner but when I ordered that second cocktail, I knew that running was out of the question. I also had a baking fail. I decided to make some bread but was too cocky and didn’t check the temperature of the bread when I finished and of course the center of the loaf wasn’t cooked. It was just gummy paste. Fail. But at least the cocktail and pizza look delish!