Cooking Cheap

It’s time to set up a hurdle for my sourdough starter and myself, I’ll make some whole wheat bread. I went to Fred Meyer’s (Kroger?) to pick up some things they have that Albertsons doesn’t and I found their bulk food (inside the health food department - no wonder I never went in there). Sure enough, there was a lot of specialty flours, seeds and what not as well as a shelf of prepackaged, brand name flours. Why they weren’t in the baking supplies aisle, only Freddie knows.

I bought some dark rye flour, I bought some whole wheat bread flour. I found two should be airtight containers to freeze the flour in. They go bad quickly without freezing (read the package if you don’t believe me). Now the question is what to make? Normally you would have a recipe and then make a shopping list to match the recipe. Too easy! if I start following recipes too closely I don’t learn enough and the most important thing you can learn about bread baking is that recipes, no matter how respected the author is don’t always work. Not that you can’t learn from reading them. I found a few to work from and I’m trying my own (although it’s probably been tried many times before by millions of bakers).

1 C unbleached (white) bread flour. 1 C whole wheat bread flour, 1/2 C dark rye flour. 1/2 C active sourdough starter (I feed the starter a few hours earlier and get a scoop when it’s good and frothy) and about 1 C water. Might be more water or less, depends on how soupy your starter is, the type of flours and how wet you want the dough to be. The humidity, the ambient temperature and a lot of other stuff. Today, it was a very wet and sticky dough and I certainly could have kneaded another 1/2 C of white flour in. High hydration (wet and sticky) produces tunnels and holes and thats what I want and it isn’t that hard to kneed if you know the tricks. This one is as wet as I’ve ever done. I decided to add 1 Tbl molasses. I’m not sure why, except rye and whole wheat recipes seem to use sweeteners and I have molasses and molasses seems “cooler” than sugar or honey. I mixed the flour and water and let it set for 20 minutes. Then I added the starter and the molasses (why the wait is too complicated to explain — just another uncontrolled variable). Oops, I forgot the salt! I removed the dough and kneaded in 1 tsp of kosher salt, more or less. I didn’t want to dirty up a measuring spoon so I just measured by hand and I know I have a light hand so I added more. That’s why recipes can’t be trusted.

I can tell already this is going to be a slow first rise. Too much salt? Not enough sugar? The whole wheat? The rye? More feedings on the starter to make it more active? I don’t know. First off I don’t know that a slow rise is a bad thing, I suspect it isn’t. I just saw a clue. Turns out the starter on the counter has doubled after I fed and removed a half cup. I didn’t wait long enough after it’s feeding. It’s not the end of the world because the dough is rising; the critters are working. It’s just going to take longer before I shape it and put it in the fridge for an overnight rest (the retard step).

The only remaining question (ignoring time to rise) is what shape I want, the baking temperature and time in the oven. I’ll hold one variable constant. I’ll make two mini loaves. One a batard shape and one a boule. As much as I’m tempted to make one boule (one standard size free form loaf), I need to follow my path of “baking for singles”. A single loaf could collapse and I wouldn’t know why or it might turn out perfectly and I wouldn’t know how it performs in half sizes. All the recipes use 7 or 8 cups of flour and make two loaves of bread. I don’t want that much bad idea or bad execution. Two mini loaves feed me for a week or longer and then I can try something else.

[Sep 1, 05]

After the retard (the nap in the fridge), I took formed loaves out. The betard shaped thing was not my best effort yesterday so I nudged it a big into a better looking blob. The nice thing about retarded dough is that you can handle it, even a soft dough like I’ve got here when its cold. Still, it’s not a pretty loaf. I left the mini-boule in the fridge for another hour. I did a little more than nudge the boule - I gave is a little rounding - just once and lightly. They sat on the counter about 3 hours each and then into the oven.

The betard didn’t seem to rise a lot (a mini ciabatta) and there was very little oven spring (450F/425F - 25 minutes. Still not pretty enough to take a picture, but it turned out OK. Lots of little tunnels and a few mid size ones. Tastes good, the interior could use a little more chewiness. The crust could be a little crunchier. All said, I’d be happy to serve it to people I want to impress. Very serviceable, very tasty. I’m not sure how much of the molasses and rye came through. There are hints.

I let the boule rise on the counter a little longer than the betard, just to see how long it would go. I didn’t learn how far. I got bored waiting. From the outside it was creating big bubbles. This one I baked at 500/450 for 23 minutes. A tiny bit of oven spring this time, The holiness was the same (good)

Again, I’d serve these to guests and not apologize. But, I think I should have let the bread develop more on the first rise before the fridge nap. I’m not sure why I think that. Or I could have kneaded it more (which would have used more bench flour and I wanted to see what the really wet dough would do). A longer second rise might be a good thing or maybe I went to too long. I don’t know. It’s all in the freezer now, it’s not a sandwich bread but it’s a nice complement to a meal. Trust me - it’s worth freezing..

Next time, I might used use less whole wheat and rye and more white. Counting the starter as white flour this was roughly 50% white, 33% whole wheat and 17% rye. For my tastes and skills, 70, 15, 15 might be better and allow a longer rise.

The trick with sourdough is to sort through the advice, opinions, myths and find out what works for you. The only single path is the one you went down and backed up to the previous fork on the road. There are many forks on the road. You have to make or buy your starter, You have to choose how to keep it alive, You have to choose which website to believe and which ones to ignore. Which book to read, which book to ignore. Clearly, they are all correct. The books and websites have pictures and they all look good.

Bread baking is a skill to learn, not a recipe to follow. You cannot duplicate the conditions of the author. Sure, you can get close even really close and you can spend a lot of money on equipment and ingredients and get anal about temperatures and hydration percentages and you could write a book about what you know or write web page or two.

The trick is that people willing to write will sound authoritative. Tis the nature of writing or passing on knowledge or just being helpful. Toss in writing styles and personalities and it’s impossible to find the one true way just by following instructions. Those are someone else’s path. You need to find your path.

The book “Breads From The La Brea Bakery” (Nancy Silverton. 1996) is high on procedure and technique to duplicate what she does for her bakery business in the home. It’s not a beginners book but it tries to be and thats just one more source of confusion.

That’s not a slam on Silverton or her book. Here’s what I learned from it. You’ll probably learn something different. She advocates a different mixing/kneading/rising technique thnt the sourdough sponge method. It’s not a new method by any means, nor does she claim so. It’s what she thinks is best from her bakery experience translated to her home. with all the nifty tools and accessories that can be looted from a bakery (every thing but the oven).

The book takes great pain to explain the process but like all of sourdough wisdom, it only muddies up the process.This temperature, this weight ratio, this starter, this hydration reading. If I was running a successful bakery I’d harp on the technical things that make repeatability too. But I’m not a bakery and I know just enough to find the beginners way through her experiences. Which would make me a bread baker because I know enough to reject some bit of advice or pursue another path.

Quick rundown. If you need details, buy the book or read some more on the web.

1. Mix the amount of sourdough starter, water, most of the flour. Knead in the rest of the flour to touch. No sponge. Just mix up up and kneed. Towards the end of kneeding, you add the salt and kneeding it in.

2 Put in a bowl for many hours to rise,(up to 4 hours depending on your starter, room temp, flours, etc). I’m leaving out the “greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap” details that you should understand already. If you don’t, this is not for you.

3. Divide the dough into the size you think you want. Roughly shape them into what you want. If you have bannetons use them.

4. Let them rest/rise/proof for another hour on the sheet pan or bannetons and then form them in the final shape you want. Shaping is not my strong spot so I’m not passing my wisdom — read a book.

5. Put the sheet pan inside a plastic garbage sack . Tie up the mouth or wrap the bannetons in plastic wrap. Which ever, put in the fridge for a long overnighter and you can go to bed.

6. Next day. Take the loaves out of the fridge and garbage bag. and put them on the counter or your proofing spot. Silverton and I will now part company. I’m not screwing with proofing cloth and peels and which end is has to be up on the rise and then down on the peel Perfectly decent loaves of bread are ruined by following the dogma of going into the oven. She says to cover with proofing cloth. I don’t have one. I tried a kitchen towel but that didn’t work. The dough dried out. Spray some cooking oil on some plastic wrap, lightly drape it over the loaves while they rise. You can transfer the still cold loaves onto parchment paper on top of some cardboard (your cheap peel) or leave them on the sheet pan. If you know how to turn out a boule from a banneton and not deflate it, you know enough to ignore my suggestion.

You let it rise for a long time. Three or four hours Or two or five. It’s up to you and your touch, your baking skills. Somewhere, you decided to crank the oven and baking stone up to 500F. I have my misting/steam technique. Silverton’s is a bother. It might be better — don’t know.

7. Bake until done. Here’s another bit of “you just know”. I’ve seen recipes for 450F for 45 minutes and 350F for 35minutes . Even more confusing, I make mini loaves. Most recipes start with around 7 or 8 cups of flour and make two loaves with probably a cup of sourdough stater. I make half of that. I’m not feeding the miltary, just me. Then I cut that half recipe in to two mini-loaves and after baking I cut each one in half and freeze three of the four for another day. That’s my only contribution to the sourdough mythology, “Sourdogh For One (or two)” 25 minutes at 450F works for my mini loaves. 25 minutes at 350 . That works too so I have much to learn.

The retard method does work for me, so far. Works well enough for me to adopt it as a new technique. I’d rather mix and knead at 5:00PM and 9:00PM on day one than do it all on day two. The technique fits me.My experiences and all the pictures on the web show that either one works for the part time home baker Pick one, master it enough to try switching techniques. Decide for yourself what works. I’ve made good bread either way. When You know the next loaf might suck carpet tacks but in your heart you know it won’t, then you are a baker. Then you can go all California and build an outdoor oven to indulge your bad self and then have HGTV feature your pathetic wannabe insecurities and spending habits for millions of other wannabes to admire.

That’s not baking. Actuallly it is baking. It’s not baking bread through.

[Update 8-14-2005]
I took a half a mini loaf out of the freezer (the boule), defrosted it in it’s tin foil wrapper and then sliced it length wise to make a hamburger bun. After the burger was grilled I tried toasting the bread slices over the charcoal, but grill marks didn’t arrive before I wanted to eat the burger.

That bread was awesome. Whether its the freezer or the counter defrost or a minutes on the charcoal grill, i can’t say but the sour was there, a big flavor in the bread. Crust was still crisp, inside still chewy and tear and texture and all that stuff was great. It was better for the freeze and thaw. Go figure. So I will.

The mini-loaves could have baked at a lower temp for longer. Try 400F for 30 minutes? Slicing across the boule showed some big time tunnels. Too big. They were damn tasty holes though. This suggests that the sour increases more slowly than the yeast so the retard method tries to give it a few extra hours. I think it works.

I tried the over night retard method for the bread. As always, I learned something. Too soon to say about the taste being better or worse or the same. It’s the technique and starter (#3) and me that I’m testing.

1) - I knew better but I followed the directions and use a kitchen towel to cover the betard (the classic French Bread shape) for its final rise. Predictably the surface of the dough dried out. Bad. The boule was an hour behind in rise time and hadn’t gotten dried out yet.soI replace the cover with oil sprayed plastic wrap.

2) - The oven spring is very impressive. They doubled in the oven. Whether its the rising technique or I got the hydration and kneading correct is hard to say. I’m going to rise the boule a little longer than called for. Just to see what happens.

3) - Silverton is the only cookbook author or website I’ve come across that says to season your tile (baking stone) at 200F overnight to keep it from breaking. So far, it’s working since I’ve never had a tile last when it was pre-heated to 500F. You can also bake on a cracked tile too. It’s really just there for the mass.

I forgot to glaze the boule but it seems to look pretty good. I’ll bake it a little longer. Silverton bakes two loaves at 450 for 40+ minutes. I’m baking a half loaf for 25 minutes or so.

4) - My starter does have the oomph to use with either technique (the sponge or the retard) This is good to know.

5) - The boule is obviously superior in outside appearance. I could have let it rise longer on the final proof. Another experiment for another day. How long would it take to collapse. Another experiment.

—
It’s very good bread. Just enough tunneling, just enough crust, just enough chew. Strangely, the sour was not any more pronounced but every thing else was spot on. That would be like “really OK”.

Why can’t you make a corn dog with bratwurst? How bad could that be? I decided to find out. Since Bratwurst is uncooked (mine are) and they won’t be in the oil long enough to cook, they need to be cooked before battering.

12 oz beer, pan, 2 brats. - Simmer. 20 minutes to 2 hours depending on what you read adding water or beer as you need it. Some suggest pricking the sausage, I’m not going to do that. In fact I’m going directly from frozen to the pot and let it simmer until I think they are done, then let them dry. I tossed in a bit of dried onion flakes into the beer but I doubt it’s going they will change anything.

When cooking for one, it’s not hard to see that the batter recipes make a lot of batter. I’m cutting my recipe in half and just for thoroughness, the remainder will be made into faux hush puppies, so I’d better start with a thick batter. I’m not going to use the wire basket on the deep fryer either since the batter will collect there and may never float. There’s no point in trying to run a stick up the cooked bratwurst either. A long stick makes breading and frying a lot harder.

Drain the cooked brats on a wire rack over a paper towel on a baking pan. They need to be really dry, I’m guessing.

Here’s my half recipe for batter:

1. 1/2 cup corn meal
2. 1/4 cup all purpose flour
3. 3/4 tsp baking powder or best quess
4. 1/2 tsp salt
5. 1 tsp sugar
6. 1/4 tsp dry mustard (a hefty pinch?)
7. 1/8 tsp pepper (I’m using a pinch of cayenne)
8. 1 egg, slightly beaten
9. 3/8 cup milk. Wing this one to the consistency you want

Mix the first 7 ingredients in a bowl. Combined milk and beaten egg in another bowl. Add to dry ingredients, stiring. Add more milk if you need a lighter batter.

Heat your oil to 375. Finely chop up a green onion or two while you wait.

When the oil is heated, dredge the brats in flour or cornstarch and shake of the excess. Then dip in the batter, to coat and put in the hot oil. Cook a couple of minutes turning every so often until it’s the brown color you like. Drain over the the rack over paper towels and you could put the baking sheet and the wire rack and the corn brats in a 200F oven while you finish the faux puppies.

Add the minced green onion to the remainder of the batter. Some black pepper seems like a good idea. Mix and then drop a healthy table spoon at a time in the hot oil. Fry a few minutes until it seems done, drain on the rack (which you have to take out of the oven). You may have to add a bit of flour to the batter with onions.

[Notes]
The corn brats are really good. The batter could be a bit thicker and the corn meal has a crunch you don’t get at the state fair if that’s what you want to duplicate. That said, it is the best corn dog you can get. The fritters/hush puppies, they needed and another 1/4 cup of flour and they really need more seasoning and should fried beyond golden, into the dark brown stage. The little crunchy bits were better than the bigger softer ones.