Wild Yeast

If I’m being honest, I have to breathe a sigh of relief that 2007 is almost over. Well, maybe not all of 2007, just the last couple of weeks. OK, maybe not all of the last couple of weeks, but the baking part. At least the part where I make at least one very stupid mistake with each and every thing I bake.

My mental bandwidth overloaded with holiday freneticism, and my brain cells additionally blunted by the consumption of a staggering amount of butter and sugar (excuses, excuses), I have felt, of late, like I’m starring in “Inspector Clouseau in the Kitchen.”

Everything turned out to be salvageable, and I’ll spare you the details, except to offer a vague explanation for why I’m not including the recipe for my submission to this month’s BreadBakingDay (#05). Our host Chelsea of Rolling in Dough chose the theme of filled breads, and I made Cardamom-Pear-Pecan Sticky Buns.

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It’s that time of year when superlatives abound, and Zorra (1 x umrühren bitte) and Sandra (Un Tocco di Zenzero) are hosting Best of 2007 for food bloggers. (What, is that me? Who’d have thought?). Everyone is invited to submit the one recipe that stands above all the others among their 2007 entries.

Deciding on a single recipe to designate as my best gave me more than a little pause, as each bread exhorted, “Pick me! Pick me!” From Norwich Sourdough: “You know I’m the most reliable and versatile bread ever to grace your oven. You can’t live without me!” But here’s Semolina Bread with Fennel, Currants and Pine Nuts, giving me that golden yellow, jewel-studded, come-hither look. “You want a piece of me?” barks beefy High-Extraction Miche as he muscles them both out of the way. “I can take the two of you with my hands tied behind my back!” And so on.

No, it wasn’t easy, but I do have a winner, which I will announce forthwith (before I change my mind again). But first, just a tiny break for station identification:

You are reading Wild Yeast. Be sure and tune in next week, when Susan will reveal which of her children she loves more.

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December is a month for lists, so here we go:

What this is:

• A Yule Log, or Bûche de Noël.
• The December Daring Bakers challenge, hosted by Lis (La Mia Cucina) and Ivonne (Cream Puffs in Venice), who are also the illustrious founders of the DBs.
• My interpretation of the recipe Lis and Ivonne adapted from Perfect Cakes by Nick Malgieri and The Williams-Sonoma Collection: Dessert. (The recipe should be up on their blogs soon.)
• A genoise cake rolled with coffee buttercream filling and frosted with mocha buttercream, garnished with meringue mushrooms and other embellishments.

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I don’t like to nag, but if you haven’t gotten your donation and raffle bids in for Menu for Hope, it’s time to get your little beehive in gear, because today is the last day.

There are still quite a few prizes with terrific odds of winning, including mine (UW16, a set of three autographed books by Tom Douglas: Tom Douglas’ Seattle Kitchen, I Love Crab Cakes!, and Tom’s Big Dinners).

Pim has compiled a list of other prizes with as-yet low numbers of bidders, so take a look. But remember, it’s ultimately not about your chances of winning, but about your chances that you will contribute to a fantastic cause, and those odds are absolutely 100%.

Sugar High Fridays. If you have a sweet tooth (and I admit it, yes, I do), it’s hard to ignore this incredibly sumptuous and well-attended monthly sweet fest founded by Jennifer, The Domestic Goddess. But I bake bread, not desserts (Daring Baker challenges notwithstanding).

Even so , when I opened my inbox to discover an invitation from Zorra to participate in this month’s event, Pudding, I really wanted to, because, well, it was an invitation from Zorra.

So I thought, let’s see, pudding… There’s chocolate, although last time I made it, the texture was, shall we say, suboptimal … I love rice pudding and I might not screw that up… or I could probably handle plum pudding for Christmas, but I don’t really like it… [Fret, fret] what pudding can I make?

Duh.

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I am proud and excited to join the international food blogging community in Menu for Hope. Led by Pim Techamuanvivit of Chez Pim, this fundraising event to benefit the United Nations World Food Programme is a wonderful opportunity to donate to a most worthy cause, and have a chance at scores of fantastic food-related prizes while you’re at it.

Last year’s Menu for Hope raised over $60,000 (!) and this year’s event can surpass that huge success, with your participation. Proceeds from this campaign will go to the WFP’s school lunch program in Lesotho, in southern Africa.

Each $10 you donate to Menu for Hope between now and December 21 entitles you to one chance on your choice of item(s) from a dazzling array of prizes offered by food bloggers around the world. The more you donate, the more virtual raffle tickets you earn and the greater your chances of winning, so don’t hold back!

You may bid on any prize(s) you like, but I hope you’ll consider my offering, generously donated by Tom Douglas Restaurants in Seattle.

Item #UW16: A set of three signed cookbooks by Chef Douglas: Tom Douglas’ Seattle Kitchen, Tom’s Big Dinners, and I Love Crab Cakes!

Bread bakers will love the Fig Brioches and Smoky Eggplant with Seed Bread. And what about Red Beet Ravioli with Fresh Corn Relish, Pesto Risotto Crab Cakes, and Cornmeal-Rosemary Cake With Lemon Glaze? These gorgeous autographed books will help you bring these and other elegant yet down-to-earth dishes to your own table. Yes, you want these books!

Now here’s what you do:
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I’m not sure when it started, but sometime after my husband and I were married, my mother came for Christmas and brought us a panettone for breakfast. Ever since then, this rich, sweet Italian bread has been a part of our Christmas breakfast (along with bagels with cream cheese and smoked salmon). Last year, I decided to try making my own. And now it’s that time of year again!

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I normally maintain my sourdough starter at 100% hydration. That is, every feeding, and therefore the starter itself, consists of equal parts of flour and water, by weight. It has a batter-like consistency and is therefore a “liquid” starter.

But not every sourdough recipe calls for liquid starter; some call for a stiffer starter, often at 50% hydration (that is, the ratio of flour to water is 2:1). It’s easy to take a portion of liquid starter and convert it to a stiff one.

The easiest way to do this is to start with a small amount of liquid starter, say 10g, and feed it with 20 g of flour and 10 g of water. Then at every subsequent feeding, continue to feed with a flour:water ratio of 2:1.

The absolute amounts depend on feeding frequency, temperature, and individual starter characteristics. After a feeding, it should be able to at least double itself in several hours and hold there without collapsing until the next feeding. During cool winter months, I find feeding every 12 hours at a ratio of 1:2:1 (starter:flour:water by weight) works well. In the summer it might be, say, 1:3:1.5 or 1:4:2. But flour:water is always 2:1.

After a few feedings the new stiff starter is ready to go. Use it at its maximum volume, a few hours after it’s been fed.

Lewis of Table Bread tagged me for this, my first meme. Am I the only one who thought “meme” was pronounce “me-me,” as in “it’s all about me”?

My answers are completely ad lib, just the first things that popped into my head, in no particular order. If you asked me the same questions tomorrow, chances are my responses would be completely different.

What were you cooking/baking ten years ago?

I was a full-time graduate student with a long commute so I don’t think I was cooking or baking much of anything. Or if I was, I don’t remember it. The only thing I can say with 100% certainty is that I made candy cane cookies, because I know I’ve made those every holiday season for at least twenty years. Skipping them would lead to extreme domestic unrest.

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