What does any sane woman do shortly after embarking on a two week long fast?
Bake bread, of course!
The fact is that after taking nearly a week to make my sourdough starter in the first place, I have major objections to NOT baking bread once a week on principle. What's more, if I don't make a new loaf, I have to discard half my starter and that makes me feel like well, there is no point to maintaining one in the first place.
SO, although I won't actually be consuming this loaf, I hope that my family appreciates it!
The story of this particular bread is as such: at my father's last Christmas I was introduced to baking with a poolish and thus began a bit of a baking bread frenzy. After a ton of internet research, I decided to seek out Daniel Leader's Bread Alone from my local library and see what all the fuss was about.
Well, two renewals and countless loaves later, I decided that infintley renewing the book at the library was a little ridonculous. Taking advantage of being in Union Square over the weekend, I stopped by Strand and lo and behold they had one copy left. Ten bucks, now it's mine!
Anyway, I couldn't possibly give better directions than Leader himself, so I won't. The only thing I do differently is that not having installed a make shift baking stone in my oven and lacking brotforms, I cook my bread in a cast iron dutch oven. Other than that, I try to stay true to the recipe!
If you are so inspired to delve deeper into the world of bread, go find the book in your library and give the recipe a shot!
3 comments:
Reading this right now is so funny: I just discarded a rye mother and a white mother because they weren't active enough (ie they didn't double within 8 hours like the recipe called for). But seeing this makes me want to try again, perhaps with a less complicated recipe than the one I used. Thanks!
I don't have any experience with rye starters, but from what I can tell, can't you just feed it some more and perhaps leave it out of the fridge for 24 hours before you want to use it to make it more boisterous? It seems a shame to discard two whole chefs for only one recipe!
The mothers certainly smelled right and were a bit bubbly, but because I had never made these ones before, I thought I should follow the directions to the letter. I sort of regret this now. Anyway, I'm going to take your suggestion and look up the bread book you used. Your pain au levain looks magnificent! I really should eat less bread, though! xo
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