I am ecstatic to declare challenge #1 complete! In case you’ve forgotten, it was RLB’s Basic Sourdough Bread on page 444.
As you can probably gather, one of my many cultures managed to flourish into a starter. That being said it is a slow rising starter, and i blame it on the cold weather… *shifty eyes*… To help the culture along, i refreshed it the first three times with equal parts of pineapple juice, water, rye flour and white flour. It took a couple of weeks before it was able to double within 24 hours, but it got there. I then proceeded to convert it into a stiff starter and refrigerate it. I’m still not entirely happy with my starter; i prefer the reliability of commercial yeast… It behaves as it’s meant to! It’s not that i don’t like sourdough – I love it, just not trying to make it…
When it came to making the bread i was a little slack. You see, in order to ensure my dough would rise within the predicted time frame, i would have had to change the water in my makeshift proof box (a plastic box from Big W, with some mugs of boiling water inside) every half hour. With last minute study and all, i didn’t really want to do this and so i left it to rise in the cold overnight and through the days. This meant it took days to complete the bread, and i’m not entirely sure it was an acceptable way to do so. I used 30% starter, and boosted it with 0.06% instant yeast.
The bread turned out ok, the top and side crust was delicious and crunchy! The crumb was very dense and spongey… i liked the spongey quality, but would have preferred a slightly more open crumb. It had a very mild sour flavour (as to be expected), which was rather pleasurable. The most disappointing part of the bread was the bottom crust – it didn’t crisp or colour, it just (sort of) set. It was gross and hard and tasted of flour… and i baked directly on a stone! I will have to rectify this in proceeding bakes… Overall i am happy i completed this bread, and now have my own starter to nurture!
You will have to excuse the shocking photos, it was very late at night and as i’m sure you’ve gathered i’m no photo taking superstar…
