dmbRedGetta
Well-Known Member
I'm going to try making bread today. Anybody have any good (preferably whole wheat) recipes?
also, check out the best bread book ever: artisan bread in 5 minutes a day.
I've used a cast iron griddle (small one-burner size from Ikea) with that dough and it has turned out nearly identical to when I used a stone. In fact, when our oven blew up and we went without a full-sized oven for a while, we were still able to make bread in the toaster oven using the griddle.
Also, you can use the same dough to make loaves but you'll want to cook it at about 375 for at least 75 minutes - usually longer than that. It is very hard to overcook such a wet dough.
sourdough is really just letting yeast go past its normal routine time wise. you have to wait, it takes time. lookup sourdough mother or sourdough sponge.
i don't mean to be nitpicky, but sourdough isn't just letting yeast go past it's normal routine.
"sourdough" refers to a symbiotic culture of wild yeast and lacic acid producing bacteria (lactobacillus). essentially, you create a sourdough starter by allowing the yeast that occurs naturally on grains of wheat (and/or rye) to break down the sugars in the grain and start to develop a population large enough to leaven bread (a sourdough with dry yeast added really isn't a sourdough). it can be done by adding coarse rye flour and water until it becomes bubbly and then gradually diluting it with bread flour until it doubles in size within 8 hrs (google somewhere to find real instructions). once you have a sourdough starter, you want to perpetuate it so you can use it, more or less, for the rest of your life. every time you start a new loaf, you save a portion of the sourdough, feed it with fresh water and flour and, for home bakers purposes, put it in the fridge until you are ready to freshen and use it again. not all sourdoughs are 'sour', different strains of lactobacillus occur around the US and the reason SF sourdough is so sour is the specific strain of lactobacillus that occurs there. there are tricks you can use to make it more sour.
it's always wise, as the OP has done, to start with dry yeast breads, graduate to pre-ferments, then try your hand at sourdough. they require a lot more attention and time. breadmaking is an incredibly rewarding hobby, congrats on your foray into it!
I do believe I have been served.
In my defense, whenever I made sourdough breads I added regular bread yeast and allowed the dough to sit uncovered on my counter until it reached my desired level of sour. So as android so succinctly stated: it is not in fact the bread yeast creating the sour it is other microorganisms found in the environment or introduced by you as a culture(mother).
so you mix the entire batch up and then just let it uber-rise on the counter? and then you just punch it down and rise it in a bread pan or into loaf shapes, let it rise again and then bake? essentially just a really long initial fermentation? i'm surprised your dough rises again after that long of a primary rise. just another testament to the toughness of yeast.
That's basically it in a nutshell. It's the long primary of baking (that's probably why I like it.) It's a great bread.
I always cold proof my pizza dough overnight in the fridge. Before I learned to do that, I would have a heck of a time working with the dough.
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