Cooking Cheap

I want to make one of those round loaves of artisan bread. The Boule. This the final exam. I want oven spring, gluten strands, crust and chew and it has to taste good. Taste will be fine, I’m not worried about that.

I took the starter out of the fridge friday night to warm up and just after noon Saturday as the BSU-Idaho game was starting I fed it 1/2 cup flour and 1/4C water plus a little bit more water and I put it in the warm spot (the cabinet in the main bath room). When the the fourth quarter arrived the starter was frothy and once again BSU was kicking Idaho butt.

I took out a 1/2 cup of the starter, more or less and mixed with 1 C of water (230g water). Gives the goo a chance to disperse in the water. Might be important, might not. Then I mixed in 2.5C of flour (310g) of cheap bread flour until I got tired of mixing. I measured out 62 g (1/2 cup) of flour that I’ll use for bench flour as needed.

Then I beat and kneaded the dough on the counter for a good part of the fourth quarter. The dough is too wet to knead but you can throw it and beat it. I added a generous Tsp of kosher salt to the dough in the middle of the kneading -like 2 Tsp generous. Work up a sweat throwing the dough on the counter. That’s how long it takes. They say you can’t over work it by hand but I get bored easily, and BSU was whupping ass . 15 minutes. I could have gone more but I was bored. A wet (soft) dough, you need a scraper. I put it into a oiled bowl, covered with plastic wrap and let it rise in the warm spot until doubled then I put it in the fridge where it tripled overnight.

Yeah, Nancy Silverton would have shaped the loaves and then put them in the fridge but I like to shape the cold dough the next day. I’ve done both. Either way works. I like shaping the next day.

It was 628g of dough, (1 lb. 6 oz) going into the fridge and hours later I can tell, I just know it’s going to be good.

[Next Day]

The boule looks fine. It even looks like a boule. For bonus points, I lined a collander with a floured towel and used that as the proofing basket for the final rise. That worked. I inverted the dough into one hand and layed it down on the corn meal on the peel. Sadly, a bit of the towel stuck to the surface but the loaf still looks great. Gluten strands, crust, color. I’m sure the inside is good.

I’m running out of things to fail at.