Bakin’

So I decided to experiment. Saturday started with me spontaneously mixing some ingredients together. There’s about two tablespoons of shortening, and of butter, and a sprinkling of sea salt. I put in one or two of the cups of flour and hand blended this all together. Then I mixed in a cup or so of the yeast culture that has previously featured in a few blog posts (here, here, and here). I’m sort of following my usual bread recipe that I’ve made in the past several years (with dried yeast as a starter) with a few adjustments here and there, trying to accommodate the different kind of yeast. Ultimately, I put about 4-4.5 cups of whole wheat flour in there, and (just for fun) used for extra moisture, instead of milk or water, about a 3/4 of a cup of a Samuel Smith’s imperial stout. (I had no difficulty finding a place to put the rest of the bottle’s contents. Yum!).

Then I kneaded the whole thing for a bit…. I’d say about 7-10 minutes…. and then left it to rise, covered in a bowl (floured to prevent sticking). Now, normally, this would all rise (and maybe even double in size) in an hour or two, but it actually took a rather long time, as expected. The evening came, and I had two parties to go to (long story), so I decided to leave it overnight.

In the morning it had swollen about 1.5 times. I was not surprised. The whole wheat flour is tougher stuff for the yeast to work with, I think. Fine. I shaped it into two long loaves and left it for another several hours while I went shopping at the farmer’s market. In the afternoon, I noticed that they’d expanded a decent amount, and decided that they were ready. I preheated the oven to about 450 F and popped in my baking stone. After about 35 minutes I sprinkled the work surface with cornmeal, pressed the bases of my loaves into it, and transferred them into the oven onto the stone. I put a small dish containing some water into the oven too, for moisture.

I turned it down to 400 or so after 10 minutes and went gardening. After about 40 minutes (total) they were almost ready, and a bit later, a knock on their bottoms gave that lovely hollow sound that said they were ready.

I sliced into them, and – yes! – a success (picture at top of post). Good texture and flavour. What would I have done differently? Perhaps for a slightly lighter bread? Maybe a little sugar to help the yeast digestion process (producing more carbon dioxide and hence better expansion of the dough)? Not sure. Perhaps an egg. And definitely more like a half a cup more of the yeast mixture to that much flour. Further (tasty) research needed.

Anyway, moving straight on… Some fresh slices, a bowl of stewed chicken form yesterday, two tomatoes from the garden, and a mojito made from lemon and mint from the garden too, and that’s tonight’s (simple, rough) dinner! See below (forgot to include the tomatoes in the picture):

-cvj