Cooking Cheap

I adapted this from a cookbook I have lying around, “The Bread Machine Cookbook II” by Donna Rathmelll German. Since I’m using sourdough starter instead of yeast and my starter is fairly thick (by choice) I’ll use a half cup of starter, trim down the bread flour by 1/2 C, remove the packaged yeast of course and use less more more of the water as I see fit. Since I’m not using a bread machine you need to adjust. Here’s the recipe followed by what I did.

1 Cup water

1 1/2 Tbl veg oil

2 1/4 Tbl molasses

1/3 tsp salt

3/4 C rye flour

3/4 C cornmeal

1 1/2 C bread flour

2 tsp yeast

If you have a bread machine, you just dump it in according to the bread machine instructions. I’m doing something different.

I’m guessing, but with that little salt and that much molasses (sugar), that the yeasties need some help in getting to the cornmeal for digestive purposes and to rise the bread properly. I’m going to use 1/2 C less bread flour and no yeast and 1/2 cup of active sourdough starter (feed it a some hours earlier and it’s foaming now). I added 3/4 of the water to all the other ingredients and mixed it and let it sit for 15 minutes. It may not absorb all the flour in the mixing bowl, but most of it should be in a ball.

Then add the 1/2 C starter,and the remaining 1/4 cup water as needed. I like a wet dough. One that’s almost impossibly sticky to handle and I’ll knead in more flour as I think is correct. Knead until it doesn’t stick to you or the counter. Rise for 3 or 4 hours or more.

Normally, you’d shape the loaves after that rise and put them in the fridge. I’ run out of time tonight, I’ll shape them tomorrow.

[next day]
The retard (fridge) of the unshaped dough seems to work and a cold dough is easy to cut and shape. I let them rise on the counter a long time, 4 hours for the first mini-loaf (batard) and 5 for the second (boule). 5hrs was too long. These are dense loaves as the recipe might suggest.

Just to confuse you and enlighten me I baked them at two different temperatures. The betard went into a 450 and stayed at 450 (20 to 25 minutes). The overproofed boule, 350 for 30-35 minutes. The crust appearance is much better for the higher temperature.

The taste is so so. The texture/crumb is uniform in density but I suspect that is the oil in the recipe since that would be valued in a bread machine recipe. The taste and mouth feel is heavy. Good breakfast toast with jam, me thinks. Thats not what I wanted. I don’t think it’s worth freezing but if I was to do it again, I’d try adding some commercial yeast and cut the oil.