Better Sandwich Loaves

This time I made and kneaded the dough just before bed, let it rise overnight for 10 hours, shaped the loaves in the morning and let them rise in the warm oven for 5 hours before baking. Very good texture and flavor, symmetrical rise, generally better. Another change that might have helped the symmetry is that I put the loaves in end-to-end, parallel to the oven door, instead of side-by-side with the ends facing the door; I also used an "envelope" fold to shape them instead of rolling.

First Sourdough Muffins: Bad

Luckily for her, Kate left for work before the sourdough muffins came out of the oven. They were greasy, flat, chewy on the outside, damp on the inside, and salty. Couldn't taste the cinnamon and barely tasted the sugar. Also, they stuck to the pan somehow, despite all that butter.

I'm not sure how to correct all those problems in the next batch. So first I'll decrease everything by half, just to make it less of a gamble. I'll add more flour at the end (this time I barely added any) and try to make it easier to mix the batter smoothly and quickly by thinning out the butter mixture and skipping the eggwhite-beating step. So:

Mix together and let sit overnight:

1/2 cup sourdough starter
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup milk
2 Tablespoons maple syrup

In the morning, preheat oven to 400, and butter half of a muffin tin. Cream together:

5 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup sugar

Thoroughly beat in one whole egg. Sift together:

1 cup white flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt

Gradually fold the sourdough and the flour by turns into the butter-and-egg mixture, adding milk or flour as necessary to produce a sticky, cohesive batter. Scrape into the muffin tin and bake 20-25 minutes, then let cool on a wire rack for another 5 minutes before popping them out.

We'll see.

Sourdough Muffins? First Try

1 cup sourdough starter
1 cup milk
1 cup whole-wheat flour
3 Tablespoons maple syrup

Mix together in a bowl and leave overnight.

In the morning, preheat the oven to 400, butter a 12-muffin baking tin, and cream together

3/4 cup butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon

and beat in

2 egg yolks.

Beat the whites separately till nearly stiff, then fold into the butter mixture along with the sourdough starter and up to

2 cups sifted flour.

Scoop into the prepared tin and bake for 20-25 minutes. Let cool in the pan for 5 more minutes and then remove the muffins to cool the rest of the way on a wire rack.


Once I've tried this I'll post again with corrections.

Good Big Loaves

Yesterday I made the second batch of blended white flour/whole wheat flour sourdough sandwich bread. It came out pretty well. Here are the proportions:

1 1/2 cups sourdough starter
1 1/2 cups lukewarm water
1/2 cup milk
2 Tablespoons maple syrup
1 Tablespoon butter
1 cup whole wheat flour
5 cups white all-purpose flour

mixed together, sprinkled with two heaping Tablespoons kosher salt and left alone for one hour... then kneaded (working in another two cups or so of white flour) for fifteen minutes. It rose for about five hours. Shaped into sandwich loaves and placed in well-buttered medium pans, it rose another two hours or so in the oven with a pan of steaming water before being baked at 350 degrees (stayed in the oven, with the water removed, during the preheating time) for about an hour.

This time everything came out wonderfully except that the oven bounce (the rise in the first part of baking) was pretty weird. The loaves were close together in the center of the oven, and they each split along that inside edge and pushed out as if they were trying to touch each other. It was too late by the time I noticed, but they're still good; just a little awkward looking.

Next time: separate them in the oven before turning it on.

Baguettes 2

Rose the baguettes for eight hours while at work, then baked them at 425 degrees for about 25 minutes, spraying the oven walls with water a few times in the first half of the baking. The long rise in the baguette pan caused a bit of trouble: the loaves stuck pretty hard to the pan, and stayed soft, almost like muffins, on the bottom. I put them back in the oven, upside-down on the rack, for ten more minutes. That was too much; they're a little scorched and the crust is too thick. Also, the scores I made in the top crust didn't open.

Next time: draw the scores more nearly lengthwise, instead of crosswise. Flour the pan more thoroughly, and maybe try to loosen the loaves or even turn them over just before baking.

sourdough baguettes

Today:

1 1/2 cups starter
1/2 cup cool water
3 cups white flour

mix together, sprinkle with 1/2 Tablespoon salt. Leave for 15 minutes. Knead for ten minutes. Divide in two, let rest 15 minutes, shape into baguettes. Leave in pans to rise for 7? 8? hours.

Hooray for White Flour

This time it came out well. Here's what I did:

1 1/2 cups starter
1 cup lukewarm water
1/2 cup milk
1 Tablespoon butter
2 Tablespoons maple syrup
1 cup whole wheat flour
4 or 5 cups white flour (King Arthur all purpose, though it's not locally grown wheat)

...mixed together with a dough hook, sprinkled with 2 Tablespoons kosher salt and left to rest for an hour. Then I kneaded it, put it in a greased bowl and let it rise for about five hours. I greased a couple of small loaf pans and shaped sandwich loaves, warmed the oven (just warm-- like 80 degrees or so) and let them rise again for about two hours. Took them out of the oven, preheated to 350, put them back in and baked for forty-five minutes with a pan of hot water making steam underneath them for the first half.

Next time: use more water, like 2 1/2 cups, to have enough dough for the large loaf pans. Leave the bread in the oven while it's preheating, but take out the pan of water (it seems to encourage an uneven rise). Maybe spray the oven walls with water early on, instead.

The last batch of pancakes didn't have any baking soda, and I liked them better. One funny thing the soda seems to do is make the cakes dry out really fast while you're cooking the first side. Without soda, they're not as bubbly, but I did the fold-in-beaten-egg-whites thing and they came out great. Next time they'll be half-and-half white and whole wheat flour (decadence!).