After much research, I learned that a good amount of sourdough starter is about 10 to 20% of the flour weight in fermented flour. … I like easy math. 🙂 Let’s say you use this recipe to make bread: 1000 grams flour (about 10 cups, depending on how you measure flour) 650 grams water (2 3/4 cups) 20 grams salt (4 teaspoons) 2 packages dry yeast And let’s say your sourdough starter is 100% hydration (that is, a 1:1 ratio of flour to water by weight), then, with a 20% fermented flour target in mind, I would use this: 800 grams flour (1000-200, since I want 20% or 200 grams of the flour to be fermented in the sourdough starter) 450 grams water (650-200 because the starter is equal amounts of water and flour) 400 grams sourdough starter (200 grams flour + 200 grams water) 20 grams salt You can use less sourdough starter than 10% fermented flour for sure. … As well, fermented flour has gluten that’s been overdeveloped (gluten develops naturally when flour becomes wet), which isn’t a problem when the fermented flour is used at low amounts, but when a lot of fermented flour is used, it can’t support the dough properly, hence the ugly dimples and inability to rise.
Tag: bread
Bread Trishaw!
We have a neighborhood bread trishaw. We also have neighborhood ice cream trishaws. 🙂 This bread trishaw goes through our neighborhood, and others, playing an annoying tune that everyone recognizes as belonging to the bread trishaw. Those who want to buy bread run out to the road with rupees in hand and buy… whatever. I …
Baking On The Stove: The Update
It’s been a while since I’ve posted about baking on the stove. You can see some previous posts: Baking on the Stove: Experiment 1 Baking on the Stove: Experiment 2 Roasting vegetables on the stove Fahim and I have wild yeast (sourdough that’s not sour) sweet buns most mornings for breakfast, and as I’ve mentioned …
Kaiser Soze Rolls
I think “life is an experiment” is a phrase I take way too seriously. 😀 I needed a recipe for buns – I’d been craving a Subway meatball sub, and since the nearest Subway is in India, I figured the only way I was going to get a meatball sub would be to make my …
The Wild Yeast Version of Peter Reinhart’s Poolish Ciabatta
Ciabatta is the next bread in line for the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge, and I’d been looking forward to making Peter Reinhart’s version from the Bread Baker’s Apprentice for a while. I’d made a couple of others but wasn’t impressed with the results, so wanted to see how this version would turn out. Plus I’d …
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Sourdough Challah
This is the next bread in line for the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge. I haven’t had challah before, nor have I ever seen it. I knew that it was a Jewish traditional bread and a favourite of some Jewish friends, and I knew it was usually braided. And that’s the extent of my knowledge about …
Sourdough Casatiello
This week’s bread for the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge is Peter Reinhart’s Casatiello. Which I consistently and unashamedly misspelled and mispronounced. It’s the Italian answer to brioche, but with meat and cheese inside. Or, at least, mostly inside… I halved the recipe and converted it to grams. I replaced the yeast with sourdough starter and …
More sourdough starter is a good thing, right?
It’ll make the bread dough rise faster, right? Right? Uh, no. Not necessarily. Uhn uhn. This all started with my wild yeast (aka sourdough or natural leaven) cinnamon buns. They took forever to rise. Forever being, oh, say, 8-10 hours at 30-35C for a first rise and another 12-14 hours for a second rise. …
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Peter Reinhart’s Poor Man’s Brioche, Sourdough Version
This is the next bread in line for the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge. I was looking forward to making brioche since so many people were huge fans, but since I hadn’t had brioche before, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. I cut the recipe in half, converted to grams, then replaced the yeast with …
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Sourdough Bagels 1 – Me 0
I’ve never been a bagel person, but given that the only bagels I’ve ever had were from supermarkets or the like in Western Canada, I doubt that I’ve had the best. Perhaps really good bagels will change my mind? No idea, but since bagels were next in the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge, I was willing …