The Food and Booze Logs

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Using the sourdough starter I’d been growing for 7 days I decided to go for a first attempt at baking with it.

The first recipe was 2 tbsps sourdough starter (probably needs more) with 2 dl of hand warm water. 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (1 might be better) and 1 tsp salt (needs more). It was mixed together until the salt was dissolved.

Added 2 dl of high-fibre wheat flour and 3 dl all-purpose flour.

Kneading and folding, adding slightly more all-purpose flour until the dough was smooth and supple.

Shaped it into a round and transferred it to a bowl lined with parchment paper.

It was left to rise over night under a wet towel. The rise time was roughly 12 hours in a kitchen with an ambient temperature of around 20-22° C. This achieved a moderate rise.

The following morning the oven was heated to 250° C.

The parchment paper with the dough was lifted into a Dutch https://amzn.to/48w6fm5oven, and the loaf scored in cute patterns. Then the lid was placed on the Dutch oven and it was left to bake centrally in the oven for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes the dough had risen slightly and the oven temperature was lowered to 200° C. The lid was removed and the loaf was left to bake until the bread was golden brown and crusted. Almost 40 minutes seemed to be enough in the home oven.

The parchment paper with the loaf was lifted out of the Dutch oven and left to cool.

Pointers:

The Dutch oven technique might need a grill of some sort on the bottom of the pot in order to avoid baking the bottom of the loaf too hard. Without one there is significantly more crust on the bottom of the loaf than on the top, at least when starting with a cold pot.

Interestingly enough, the amount of starter used was really low, but it still managed to get enough of a rise to keep the bread from being a compact piece of dough. Despite this, the following bakes have shown that it still seems better to use more of the starter to improve both rise and taste.

The original recipe might also be better with the changes in parenthesis above, but other than that it turned out to be perfectly edible bread that had a slight taste of rye (or then it’s some kind of interaction with the olive oil, but new to me), despite using all wheat flour. I’m not entirely satisfied with this one, so next bake will have a different combination.

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• Asian Pork Hamburger on Rye | Recipe
• Shrimp and Avocado Salad with Lime Cilantro Dressing | Recipe
• Seared Pork Fillets with Creamy White Wine Dijon Sauce | Recipe
• Chicken Paprika | Recipe
• Goat’s Cheese Salad with Roasted Sourdough Bread | Recipe

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