More Tasty Bread

There is big progress in the laundry room! The carpet is out the sheet rock up and one layer of mud on it today. YEAH that's what I'm talkin about!
Kayla and I went and picked out paint and flooring today. I am not saying one word, you get to be surprised. I think it is going to be really interesting!

The bread I baked today. It is delicious.


These guys need to give me a cut on the profits the way that I am promoting this book. But people let me tell you it WORKS!!! It is so easy!


For the bread that I made. I used their method of 6,3,3,12.
6 cups of water, 3 Tbs yeast, 3 tbs salt and 12 of flour. The dough will always be wet.

BUT here is the Karen Deborah tweaking part.

The first thing I did was make a sourdough starter with rye flour. It called for 1 c rye flour, 2 c water and 1/2 c any kind of raw bread dough. I kept this going for one week. Since I did not want a huge amount of starter I used a quart jar and added 1/4 c of water and rye flour each day for one week. The starter did fine. I stirred it every day and after 5 days put it in the refrigerator.

For this bread pictured above I used 2 cups of starter and replenished my starter with 1 c water and 1 c. rye. Starter is NOT required for the bread in this book but I am looking for a richer taste.
I added 4 cps water to the Bosch. Just tepid. With this technique they do not worry about water temperature or proofing yeast. There is also no sugar/honey and no oil in this dough.
For flours, I divided into equal parts, 4 c Prairie Gold whole wheat 4 c high protein unbleached soft white wheat, and 4 c. King Arthur rye flour. I don't have any rye to grind.

I added the salt along with the flours.

This dough is just run until mixed and sticky it isn't kneaded. That is the HARDEST part of making this bread. I almost can't turn the dial off because everything in me wants to run the dough in the mixer for awhile, at least 5 minutes. But the authors of the book say not to do it.
This bread never does get kneaded! It never gets socked down or any other way requires, "work." It's a very gentle process which the more I read gives a better dough anyway.

I did oil my sterilite bin with olive oil and pat some oil on the top of the dough to keep it from getting a "crust." The dough is then left in the bin in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks, it gets more sour each day. Today was the 3rd day and the first batch I baked. To bake it you preheat the oven to 450 and put your pizza stone in the oven to get hot. Also put a broiler pan underneath it. Sprinkle some cornmeal on the stone.

To shape a loaf you pinch off a chunk about the size of a grapefruit, from the tub of dough and cloak it in flour, shaping it into whatever shape you desire. It is sticky. It is then supposed to sit and rest for 40 minutes before you bake it. I think when the preheat light went off I went ahead and put it in. It would be very helpful to have a pizza paddle to shake it into the oven. I just pick my loaf up and set it on the stone very gently. You also need to make some slits on the top in some artsy design for steam to escape. Immediately add some water to the broiler pan for steam and close the oven door.
bake 40 mins.

The book has a lot of different ideas and recipes all which make it worth every penny! A nice Bosch mixer is great but a big Kitchenaid would also work, even a big bowl and a wooden spoon done by hand! Seriously!

They say the proof is in the pudding. I would not win any baking prizes or compete with real sourdough from San Franciso but the bread is very good. The dough seems a bit wet to me even when finished but it has good texture and it slices well. The crust is excellent. The crust really is that chewy artisan country style bread, it's wonderful. My family likes it and it is NOT labor intensive. Just bake it as you need it.

The only problem I have is that I could use another refrigerator for different kinds of dough.
I can only house one bin at a time and I would like to have several varities of dough at the same time. There are some amazing recipes that I can't wait to try.