Wild Yeast » how to

Sourdough with a Twist

Susan — Mon, 10 May 2010 16:23:14 +0000

A good sturdy sourdough is fabulous on its own, but it also serves nicely if you happen to be in a twisted frame of mind. Flavor twists such as olives, roasted garlic, or herbs are easy and keep things interesting. And then there are the simple twists of shape that add even more excitement to your life. Well, they add excitement to my life. It could be that I need to get out more.

For these crusty, twisty rolls, I tossed a bit of chopped fresh rosemary into a batch of Norwich Sourdough. With this pungent herb, about two or three tablespoons (4 – 5 grams) per kilogram of dough is enough to provide a distinct rosemary flavor without overpowering.

The twist shape (tordu, if you’re feeling French) is a bit time-consuming, but this can be a good thing if, like me, you cherish hands-on time with your dough (did I mention I might need to get out more?).

Read on for shaping tutorial…

Small-Scale Thinking

Susan — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 01:56:27 +0000

In the past I have recommended (OK, scolded, ranted, pleaded) that you weigh your baking ingredients. Are you doing that?

Do you have a kitchen scale that gets a workout every time you bake? Yay!

Are you using that scale to weigh all of your ingredients? Not so fast.

Most kitchen scales have a resolution of one or two grams. That means that if you need to measure in small amounts, which is common for things like yeast and salt, it is very difficult to be accurate.

If you needed, say, 2 grams of instant yeast, and you tried to measure that on your 1-gram-resolution scale, you could wind up with anything from 1.5 to 2.5 grams. That’s a 25% margin of error, even assuming the scale is perfectly calibrated. If you’re weighing only one gram, the margin of error goes up to 50%, and if you need less than a gram, you might as well just let lemurs weigh it out for you.

Being the conscientious baker (ok, the phrase “compulsive geek” could come to mind) that I am, this is not okay with me. (Maybe it’s okay with you, and I’m okay with it being okay with you, but it’s still not okay with me. Okay?)

I’m really liking this new Admetior spoon scale. It’s fairly inexpensive, compact, and spot-on accurate, as corroborated by my earlier MyWeigh Axe, which I also like but is a little pricier. Both have 0.1-gram resolutions and can handle up to 300 grams.

Until you can get your hands on one of these little gems, I suggest using good old-fashioned measuring spoons in most cases where you need 10 grams or less. Here are some conversions for ingredients commonly called for in small amounts:

(more…)

Osmotolerant Yeast

Susan — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 22:12:24 +0000

Especially during the holiday season when sweet breads abound, you may run across recipes that call for osmotolerant yeast (also called SAF Gold, as it comes in a gold-colored package; SAF is the brand.)

Osmotolerant yeast is a special strain of instant dry yeast that performs better in high-sugar doughs than other yeasts do. In small amounts, sugar enhances fermentation, but when the amount of sugar exceeds about 5% of the flour weight, it impedes fermentation by pulling water away from the yeast. (If you’re a science geek, you probably know that sugar creates osmotic pressure, and if you’re not, you probably don’t care.)

SAF Gold is available from a number of online sources. However, if you can’t get it and have recipe that calls for it, you can use regular instant yeast (SAF Red, for example), and just increase the amount by about 30%.

Pssst, Want to Score Some Baguettes?

Susan — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 05:33:23 +0000

By my count, I’ve made around 100 baguettes in class over the past two weeks. Tomorrow I have practical exam in which I have to mix two doughs and make roughly 15 baguettes from each one. The next day is more practical exam, and that means more baguettes. I am tired at the end of each day, and if I’m being honest, I’m a little tired of baguettes too.

So what did this tired on tired translate into last night? When I got home, did I take a hot bath? Watch a little TV? Catch up on my reading? How about on my sleep? Well, no. I made a few more baguettes. I can’t explain this entirely. It had something to do with wanting to know if I could make a baguette in my own kitchen that looks as good as the ones we’ve been turning out in class.

The answer is no, I couldn’t. Or at least I didn’t (see below photo). However, because I am presumptuous by nature, I will presume to tell you what I know, or I think I know, about scoring the damn things.

(more…)

Drying a Starter

Susan — Thu, 07 May 2009 04:43:08 +0000

If you’re moving across the country and want to take your sourdough starter with you, or want to mail some to a friend, or want to save a backup of a particularly well-loved starter as insurance against accidental loss, drying your starter can be the way to go.

Drying a liquid starter is simple and fast, and reviving it to baking strength takes less time, and is easier, than starting a new one from scratch.

Before drying your starter, make sure it is strong and vibrant. If you normally refrigerate it, take it out and feed it for a few days, as you would before using it in a dough.

When it is good and strong, feed it a final time, then ferment it for about half the time you would normally go until the next feeding. You want the yeast to have something left to feed on while they are falling asleep.

Then, using an offset spatula, spread a thin layer of starter on a piece of parchment, put it somewhere where it will be free from flying debris, and wait for it to dry completely. This will take approximately overnight, but the exact time will vary according to the hydration of your starter, how thickly your smear it, and the temperature and humidity in your house. Make sure it is completely bone dry, or you run the risk of mold.

Here’s how mine looked just after spreading it out to dry:

(more…)

Do-It-Yourself Conversions

Susan — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 20:01:27 +0000

Have you noticed that most of my recipes list ingredients in grams? I often receive email from people asking if I would convert the grams into ounces, or into volume measurements. I’m sorry I cannot do this on request, but here are some tips that may help you, if you want to do the converting yourself.

I strongly recommend weighing ingredients, especially flour. The reasons for this are explained in my post about scales and weighing. Many scales can switch between avoirdupois (ounces/pounds; the US system) and metric (grams/kilograms; the sane system) units.

If you do not have a scale, or your scale does not have metric units, you will have to do some math. (Remember when you rolled your eyes in 5th-grade math class and complained that you couldn’t imagine when you would ever need this stuff in real life? Now would be a good time.)

(more…)

Shaping Ciabatta: Video

Susan — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 19:25:03 +0000

I have seen different methods for shaping ciabatta; the method I use is really more cutting than shaping.

In contrast with most other doughs, which are assertively de-gassed during shaping, ciabatta wants to be handled very gently to maintain all those lovely bubbles that have developed during fermentation.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

(If you can’t see the video here, view it on YouTube.)

Folding a Wet Dough: Video

Susan — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 08:35:39 +0000

Folding is a powerful technique for strengthening a dough. Wet doughs such as ciabatta can particularly benefit from folding, but can also be challenging to fold. The key is using plenty of flour on the counter (go ahead, make a mess!); excess flour should be brushed away so you don’t get streaks of unincorporated flour in your loaves.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

(If you can’t see the video here, view it on YouTube.)

How to Use a Flipping Board: Video

Susan — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 05:25:03 +0000

The folds of a couche (a piece of stiff linen) are ideal for cradling and supporting proofing baguettes and batards. But how do you transfer the proofed loaves onto a peel so you can get them into the oven?

Flipping board to the rescue. A flipping board is nothing more than a narrow piece of wood onto which the loaf is gently rolled off the couche, and from which the loaf is then either rolled or slid onto the peel.

In the video below, I use a 27 x 4-inch board to transfer baguettes onto a piece of parchment on my plywood board “peel.” (I will slide the parchment, loaded with three baguettes, onto the baking stone in the oven.)

These baguettes have been proofing seam-side-down in the couche, and I want them to wind up seam-side-down on the parchment. To do this, I lift the edge of the couche to roll the baguette onto the flipping board, so it’s now seam-side-up. Then I roll the baguette off the edge of the flipping board onto the parchment, so it’s seam-side-down again.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

(If you can’t see the video here, view it on YouTube.)

(more…)

My (Non-)Bannetons

Susan — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 03:22:46 +0000

A while ago I wrote about brotforms, the German coiled cane proofing baskets that leave a spiral pattern on the crust of your loaf. What if you don’t have a brotform, or don’t want that spiral pattern? A banneton, French cousin to the brotform, is a woven wicker basket that usually has a linen fabric liner sewn into it.

A basket provides support for a proofing loaf; the linen liner reduces sticking and yields a smoother crust than an unlined basket. While I do proof most of my boules and batards in linen-lined baskets, they’re not official bannetons. Instead, I use loose pieces of natural unbleached linen that I lay inside of whatever basket or other vessel I want to use use for proofing. This works very well and has quite a few advantages over sewn-in liners:

It’s flexible. Any basket or bowl can be used; you don’t need special “proofing baskets.” I have been known to use decorative wicker or sisal baskets; the basket from my salad spinner; plastic chip baskets; and salad and mixing bowls made from wood, ceramic, plastic, or metal. Whatever size you need, you probably already have it around the house. Of course if you already have a brotform, you can lay a linen liner in that too, if you feel like it.

(more…)