Hotel Room Baking - Sourdough Bread
Apr. 4th, 2020 03:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grundyscribblingI've seen some folks deploring how complicated it is to make sourdough bread.
It's really not. At least, it's not once you have your starter, and even that is not as complex as some would have it. I've been making sourdough bread in my hotel room regularly the past couple weeks, and it's pretty easy. There's a few short bursts of Doing Things (mixing up the dough in the first place, shaping it) but you don't actually have to do that much to get yummy bread. I'd put it at maybe half an hour of work total.
I should mention before I go any further that I am very relaxed about recipes - there is no fussing about 'all measurements level' or tolerances here. There is also an implicit understanding that salt and spices are always 'to taste', so you'll adjust them as you see fit. (If you prefer a more careful, step by step and real measurements approach, I found The Clever Carrot's Beginnners Guide helpful when I first tried sourdough.)
I've had good luck with King Arthur Flour's starter recipe. Yes, it takes a while before you're ready to make bread- as a rule, expect it to take at least 5 days if not a full 7 or longer to be ready to use. You may also want to look up recipes to use starter discard, because you'll have plenty of it.
One thing the King Arthur recipe doesn't tell you is how to be sure your starter is ready to go. Use a water float test - if a spoonful of your starter floats when you put it in a glass of water, then it's ready to use. If it sinks, it's not ready - keep on feeding it up. (If you need clarification on 'put it in', don't hurl it/drop the starter with great force, but you also shouldn't need to ease it in slowly and gently while holding your breath.) You'll also have a pretty good idea of whether or not it's ready by what it does after feeding - you'll see it visibly and fairly dramatically bubble up within a few hours.
There are tons of recipes out there for various forms of sourdough, but I've just been doing 1-2-3 bread - 1 part starter to 2 parts liquid to 3 parts flour. (Note: 100g makes calculations easy and results in a decent sized loaf. I like easy calculations, because I am lazy. Alas, I have no idea how to convert this to something reasonable that also makes for nice calculations in American units. If you have a kitchen scale, hopefully it does metric.)
If you're not 100% confident about your starter, you can "cheat" and sprinkle some active dry yeast on the liquid when you're measuring out your ingredients. I haven't needed to do that this trip, as I have a starter so rampant it tried to climb out of the jar on day 2, resulting in an urgent need to bake bread. I don't know how I got the Incredible Hulk of starters, but I'm not complaining.
DO NOT FORGET THE SALT. Those all caps are in the hopes you will learn from my moment of flakiness - I forgot the salt once. The resulting bread wasn't bad, but it wasn't good, either. It's been a while since I originally read about this method of breadmaking, but if I recall correctly salt should be about 6% of starter weight. I'm not that exact and shoot for somewhere around 5-10% of starter weight. I say somewhere, because I haven't been measuring more exactly than "handful". (My hands are not that big. The one time put it on the scale to check, it came in at 8g salt to 100g starter. Resulting bread tasted good, so "handful" works.)
Mix it all together. Be aware this will make a dough that's on the sticky side - accept that it's going to stick to your hands even if you flour them. Use a scraper to get it away from the sides of the bowl. You can knead it if you really want, but it's not necessary. As I said, I'm lazy, so I just sort of get the dough into a ball (or at least a vague approximation of a ball) and call it done. Flour the dough ball a bit to keep it from sticking too much to the sides of whatever container it's in, set it aside, cover, and let it rise for a good long while. Several hours at least. I've been making dough late in the evening and letting it go overnight. (If you're not letting it rise overnight, you may do a few stretch and folds during the rise.)
You can bake your bread on a bread/pizza stone, or in a loaf pan. (If you use a stone, sprinkle generously with semolina before putting your dough down to keep the bread from sticking to the stone to the point you'll have difficulty liberating it.) Shape it as appropriate, and then let it do another rise. I've been using a loaf pan - I shape the dough and put it in a greased and floured pan when I get up in the morning, and then let it rise until late morning. Before baking, score the dough with a knife - you can get fancy with your patterns if you like, but a couple straight or diagonal slashes is fine.
Bake in a hot oven* for about an hour - judge by eye when it's done. Look at the crust color and texture. You'll know when it looks good. (Since I'm baking in a toaster oven, I can't get fancy with steam as some recommend when baking bread. But that's ok, because any moisture released from the baking bread is contained by the small baking space. If you're working with a full size oven, you can either put some water in the oven in an oven-safe dish to make steam, or bake your bread in a Dutch oven with the lid on for the first ~20 minutes.)
Then for the hard part - DO NOT TEAR INTO IT THE SECOND YOU TAKE IT OUT OF THE OVEN. Let your bread cool at least twenty minutes, preferably longer. I'm calling it cooling, but technically, the bread is still cooking at this point. The heat is still in there - if you cut into your loaf right away, you're letting it all out abruptly. That will affect the texture of the bread, and not for the better. Let your bread cool properly before slicing and enjoying - it will be worth the wait!
*I can't give you an exact temperature, because toaster oven dial. 425-ish F.
It's really not. At least, it's not once you have your starter, and even that is not as complex as some would have it. I've been making sourdough bread in my hotel room regularly the past couple weeks, and it's pretty easy. There's a few short bursts of Doing Things (mixing up the dough in the first place, shaping it) but you don't actually have to do that much to get yummy bread. I'd put it at maybe half an hour of work total.
I should mention before I go any further that I am very relaxed about recipes - there is no fussing about 'all measurements level' or tolerances here. There is also an implicit understanding that salt and spices are always 'to taste', so you'll adjust them as you see fit. (If you prefer a more careful, step by step and real measurements approach, I found The Clever Carrot's Beginnners Guide helpful when I first tried sourdough.)
I've had good luck with King Arthur Flour's starter recipe. Yes, it takes a while before you're ready to make bread- as a rule, expect it to take at least 5 days if not a full 7 or longer to be ready to use. You may also want to look up recipes to use starter discard, because you'll have plenty of it.
One thing the King Arthur recipe doesn't tell you is how to be sure your starter is ready to go. Use a water float test - if a spoonful of your starter floats when you put it in a glass of water, then it's ready to use. If it sinks, it's not ready - keep on feeding it up. (If you need clarification on 'put it in', don't hurl it/drop the starter with great force, but you also shouldn't need to ease it in slowly and gently while holding your breath.) You'll also have a pretty good idea of whether or not it's ready by what it does after feeding - you'll see it visibly and fairly dramatically bubble up within a few hours.
There are tons of recipes out there for various forms of sourdough, but I've just been doing 1-2-3 bread - 1 part starter to 2 parts liquid to 3 parts flour. (Note: 100g makes calculations easy and results in a decent sized loaf. I like easy calculations, because I am lazy. Alas, I have no idea how to convert this to something reasonable that also makes for nice calculations in American units. If you have a kitchen scale, hopefully it does metric.)
If you're not 100% confident about your starter, you can "cheat" and sprinkle some active dry yeast on the liquid when you're measuring out your ingredients. I haven't needed to do that this trip, as I have a starter so rampant it tried to climb out of the jar on day 2, resulting in an urgent need to bake bread. I don't know how I got the Incredible Hulk of starters, but I'm not complaining.
DO NOT FORGET THE SALT. Those all caps are in the hopes you will learn from my moment of flakiness - I forgot the salt once. The resulting bread wasn't bad, but it wasn't good, either. It's been a while since I originally read about this method of breadmaking, but if I recall correctly salt should be about 6% of starter weight. I'm not that exact and shoot for somewhere around 5-10% of starter weight. I say somewhere, because I haven't been measuring more exactly than "handful". (My hands are not that big. The one time put it on the scale to check, it came in at 8g salt to 100g starter. Resulting bread tasted good, so "handful" works.)
Mix it all together. Be aware this will make a dough that's on the sticky side - accept that it's going to stick to your hands even if you flour them. Use a scraper to get it away from the sides of the bowl. You can knead it if you really want, but it's not necessary. As I said, I'm lazy, so I just sort of get the dough into a ball (or at least a vague approximation of a ball) and call it done. Flour the dough ball a bit to keep it from sticking too much to the sides of whatever container it's in, set it aside, cover, and let it rise for a good long while. Several hours at least. I've been making dough late in the evening and letting it go overnight. (If you're not letting it rise overnight, you may do a few stretch and folds during the rise.)
You can bake your bread on a bread/pizza stone, or in a loaf pan. (If you use a stone, sprinkle generously with semolina before putting your dough down to keep the bread from sticking to the stone to the point you'll have difficulty liberating it.) Shape it as appropriate, and then let it do another rise. I've been using a loaf pan - I shape the dough and put it in a greased and floured pan when I get up in the morning, and then let it rise until late morning. Before baking, score the dough with a knife - you can get fancy with your patterns if you like, but a couple straight or diagonal slashes is fine.
Bake in a hot oven* for about an hour - judge by eye when it's done. Look at the crust color and texture. You'll know when it looks good. (Since I'm baking in a toaster oven, I can't get fancy with steam as some recommend when baking bread. But that's ok, because any moisture released from the baking bread is contained by the small baking space. If you're working with a full size oven, you can either put some water in the oven in an oven-safe dish to make steam, or bake your bread in a Dutch oven with the lid on for the first ~20 minutes.)
Then for the hard part - DO NOT TEAR INTO IT THE SECOND YOU TAKE IT OUT OF THE OVEN. Let your bread cool at least twenty minutes, preferably longer. I'm calling it cooling, but technically, the bread is still cooking at this point. The heat is still in there - if you cut into your loaf right away, you're letting it all out abruptly. That will affect the texture of the bread, and not for the better. Let your bread cool properly before slicing and enjoying - it will be worth the wait!
*I can't give you an exact temperature, because toaster oven dial. 425-ish F.
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Date: 2020-04-05 06:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-05 07:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-05 07:24 pm (UTC)Pardon the edit.