bethesdabakers

You know about the Maillard Reaction. Well I think what you got was the Maitai Reaction. Prof Calvel don't approve but all the keen types who were posting on forums when I was learning were striving to get a blistered crust. I did some work for a traditional Britsh craft baker last year and he too had been taught that blistering was a "fault" (didn't actually worry about the overall standard of the produce on the other hand). The important thing is to make the bread the way you want it. So you must have done good. Cheers! Mick

Good grief! How do you Americans do it? The long term answer is to store your bread formulas in grams in bakers' percentage format in spreadsheet calculators. Can't help you in volumetric but if you convert your formula to grams, here's what you do. This assumes a starter at 100% hydration and between 25-30% of flour weight using bakers' percentage. Add together the weights of the flour and water. Divide this seven and this will give you the weight of your starter. Divide this by two and subtract this number from the original flour weight and from the water weight (because your starter is equal weights of flour and water). Good luck! Edited to say: I was thinking in the bath just now, "What's special about this recipe that makes it authentically Lebonese?" And the answer is, "Nothing" - it's just a basic white dough. So why not just use a white soughdough formula? I use my basic wholemeal formula for pita. Mick

After all these years of making bread, I never made a muffin. But I'm planning a TexMex birthday brunch for a few people next Sunday and Robb Walsh has a recipe for Huevos Benedictos where the Hollandaise Sauce takes on some chipotle and refried beans come into the equation. So I look for muffin recipes and The Cheeseboard Collective Works, one of my favourite books even if it is all spoons and cups, had the answer. I used my most basic white sourdough formula - Strong White Flour 100%, Water 59%, Starter 26.4%, Salt 1.5%. Fermented at room temperature for four hours, folded every hour. Then, pressed out the dough into a rectangle about ¾ inch thick, cut 3 inch rounds with a floured glass. Proved the rounds on a baking sheet liberally dusted with corn meal for two hours. Heated a baking stone on a low gas for five minutes. Dusted the baking stone with corn meal, cooked the rounds for 10 minutes either side. Easy or what? Mick

Todays sourdough: English Muffin!

Smithy, I'd have baked it! Later in the week I’ll be baking potato and black onion seed bread and apricot and almond fougasse for customers. But this to me is what bread is all about: A two kilo Mick’s Classic Sourdough. No frills, just starter, strong white and wholemeal wheat flours, water, salt. The sort of bread you’ll find on French markets, probably made of T80 flour and three or more kilos. There they will sell you a piece by weight and at home the best approach is to cut it in quarters and freeze what is unlikely to be used in the next few days. But it will keep for a week and the flavour develops with time. Of course you can make smaller loaves but for me two kilos is perfect. It retains moisture and bakes evenly (65 minutes at 210C in my oven) and the flavour is affected by the crust/crumb ration of the larger loaf. Impossible to improve upon. Mick

Sounds incredibly similar to Moroccan Kalinte. I've done the recipe from Paula Woolfert's wonderful The Food of Morocco a couple of times. This calls for an egg, 6 tablespoons olive oil, 2 teaspoons salt, 1 litre lukewarm water and 350g chickpea flour. The egg and most of the oil are whisked in a blender followed by the salt and half of the water followed by the remaining flour and enough water to make a smooth mix. This goes through a seive and the remaining water is stirred in. The mixture then stands for at least half a day or up to two days in the fridge. The first time I did this it was so wet I was convinced the water quantity was way out - should have trusted Paula. The baking is quite unusual. Put a pizza stone in the oven turned up to 250C well in advanced. Oil a 35cm deep pizza pan, stir the mixture and pour it in. Bake for 30 minutes. Brush the surface of the bread with olive oil, partially cover with a baking sheet, turn off the oven, put the bread back in the oven for about 20 minutes. It being Moroccan, the bread is then sprinkled with cumin or harissa. The bread section in the book is quite interesting (not to mention the food to go with it!)

Of course, it's possible to be too rustic: Another one of baking's dirty little secrets - assembling a high hydration pizza on a metal peel can turn into a car crash, especially with my dexterity. Lovely buns, Keychris, if I'm allowed to say that. It's always interesting to hear how other people organise their sourdough. Generally speaking I refresh at 1:1:1. Mick

And then, if I do go in for the ciabatta type loaf, my preference is for something a little more rustic: My version of Turkish pide, shaped by folding and stretching, egg washed and well sprinkled with za'atar. Mick

Of course, there's more to life than the white, high hydration ciabatta/baguette style sourdoughs that predominate on this forum. I have a weakness for the other end of the spectrum: Cistercian (rhyming slang - Cistercian Monk = drunk), a heavy beer bread with three flours - strong white, wholemeal wheat and wholemeal rye - and stuffed with pot barley. The barley is boiled in water until al dente and then soaked in beer which makes the hydration slightly tricky. Fortunately no one had told me that using your judgement was baking's dirty little secret so I got away with it. Lovely moist, chewy, sourish bread, just right for winter. Mick

You've been practicing!

Hi Smithy I know you say your maintenance has been regular but what you are describing are the classic signs of neglect – not enough food and/or too much heat. If it’s reasonably warm where you are and you are storing it at room temperature you should feed it every day (obviously you can’t be doing that or you wouldn’t know about the smell after two days and the hooch after three). You say you are refreshing at equal parts of starter, water, flour. Is this by volume or weight? If volume, that explains why the starter’s getting thinner although the longer it’s left between feeds the wetter it will get. Frequent changes of location won’t help your starter but it should settle down after a couple of days recovery. Your best bet is to refresh it and insist on some fridge space – you only need to store about 100g. That doesn’t take up much space. Good luck! It’s very hard to kill a starter! Mick

I'm probably a bit late for the feast now. I was going to emphasise the need for a good supply of Scotch pies (mutton pies). Back in the early 70s when I was a youth I worked as a humble assistant stage manager at Dundee Repertory Theatre and lunch, at the local pub, consisted of hot scotch pies served with baked beans on top inside the rim of the hot water crust. Not only that, a bottle of worcestershire sauce was brought with it to the table which I thought very sophisticated. This, plus a couple of pints of Wm Youngers heavy made for a sustaining lunch in the winter cold. I was reminded of this by a letter in the UK Guardian on Monday on the subject of HP Sauce which read, "You didn’t mention the vital role played by HP sauce in the best hangover breakfast ever - a roll and pie. A mutton pie, that is, hot, in a roll (soft or crispy), with loads of HP. In fact, a great start to any day." Perhaps for the morning after the buffet? Mick

Hi Chris I’m pretty new to this whole thing. I’m trying to understand the fermentation process which is a bit ironic given I’ve been a sourdough baker for so long and a supporter of certain fermented beverages. As recommended by Mr Currence I tracked down a cheap copy the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving – very clearly written apart from the North American volumetric measures. I buy good quality organic cider vinegar in 5 litre quantities. John Currence calls for champagne vinegar but that’s a step too far for my pocket. To be honest I haven’t found it an intrusive taste. The jars are Kilner Jars which are standard UK issue, except for the rubber sealed one which is Vogue, a French company. I use the standard water bath method. Unlike you sunny photographs you can see we are in the deep mid-winter here in mine!

I love that book. I got the bug too this year. Do the pickled grapes, they're fabulous and very easy. And the pickled apples.Those two really get people you wouldn't expect nibbling away. But the star, as far as I'm concerned, is his "Tabasco". I've made a jalapenos version and a scotch bonnet. You have a couple of months to wait but it's serious stuff. This year I'm going to have little vats of various chiles fermenting and I'm going into blending. Mick

Hi Smithy This is my most basic bread in the sense that, for me, this epitomises what bread should be all about before bits and pieces are added for variety. So I'm pleased you are trying it and I hope you get your oven sorted. When it is, try making a 2 Kilo loaf! I know people on this site are often going for smaller loaves than 800g but reckon a 2K loaf gives you the perfect proportion of crust and crumb for this rustic type of bread. In my oven I would give it 65 minutes. You can quarter it and freeze three parts. Best wishes Mick

Great to see all you people making naturally leavened bread. Generally speaking salt is reckoned as 2.0% of flour weight. In these health conscious days there is a trend to reduce this amount. In this formula the percentage has slipped down to 1.5%. But formulas are just guidelines. If you want to add more salt that's your choice. Just keep baking! Mick

Really pleased to see this thread is still going. Anna - I was going to suggest you tried a loaf when you posted your previous starter. But there'sno doubt this one's flying - look forward to thebread photos. Best wishes - to you all. Mick

Hey MacD - Thanks for the info on Italian Club Fish. We had an excellent celebratory lunch there yesterday and it was just as you described. I make a point of saying thank you because this forum used to be a great source of information.But now - I'd still be sitting on Bangor station ten months on waiting for a tip for a birthday celebration in Cardiff - http://forums.egullet.org/topic/121351-pubs-the-topic/page-5#entry1949974

When I started this two months ago I deliberately opted for a New Topic because I have fundamental disagreements with the approach of some people posting on “The Bread Topic”. I don’t want to get into a fight with them so I have the good manners to start something separate. My aim has been to show that the basics of good bread making are simple and that much of what is now touted as being essential for success can be stripped out. Problem is, egullet is an open forum so, as long as a writer sticks to the topic, they can’t be stopped from ignoring the spirit of the thread and can muddy the waters with “pre-ferments”, not one but two periods of autolysis (can’t even follow the logic of that one) and dutch ovens. Plus I assume this is the start of another endless parade of impeccable photos of impeccable loaves. I’m not sure that that is in any way instructive. Good luck to everyone.

All this excitement is getting overwhelming! Meanwhile Anna' stuck. Anna, you say the mould forms after a few days. Have you tried going beyond this stage? I did a quick run around the net and there is a suggestion that starters build up their resistance to mould as the bacteria develops in the mixture so they are more vulnerable to attack in the early days. There's also a suggestion that mould tends to form on the sides of the container so they should be scraped down or wiped clean. I agree that tight fitting lids are not a good idea. Try scraping the top off the starter and from the remainder take about 50g and refresh it with 100g water and 100g flour and start again in a fresh container where the allows lid allows for a bit of air flow. Then persevere for a few days and see what happens.

Thanks Cookman. Anyone who has found these threads useful might want to consider buying my book "Bethesdabasics - Sourdough Made Simple" details of which can be found here http://thepartisanpress.me/bethesdabasics/. The cost of mailing outside the UK is pretty dire, but you can have the pdf version on your laptop, tablet or phone for a mere £10.00. Again, there isn't a correct answer to your question. About 30% of the flour weight is fine. On the other hand I have formulas at 100% and there are people who explore using really low percentages with longer fermentation times. What you have to remember is that if you want to retain the integrity of the original recipe the ingredient weights have to remain the same, i.e., if you simply add starter at 30% of the flour weight, you have changed the proportions of the recipe. This is the way I do it. This assumes you have a starter at 100% hydration (equal quantities of flour and water). This calculation assumes a starter at 15% of dough weight (not flour weight). You might want to increase that as high as 30%. Take your yeasted recipe and add up the total amount of flour and the total amount of liquid, add the two together and call that the dough weight. Assuming you want to use starter at 15% of dough weight, calculate what 15% is, halve the amount and deduct that from the flour and from the liquid. For example, say the recipe has 1000g flour and 600g water – dough weight = 1600g (forget about salt, etc.). 15% of 1600g = 240g = weight of starter (which is made up of equal weights of flour and water). So deduct half of this, 120g from the weight of flour = 880g, and the same for the water = 480g. So your recipe becomes: flour 880g + water 480g + starter 240g = 1600g. That's a starter at 27.3% of the flour weight.

Hi Smithy You should be thrilled - your loaf looks really good! So much about baking is using your judgement. Different flours and ovens are just two factors that make it impossible to supply a recipe and method that will work precisely the same for everyone - and that's before you bring in personal preference. In the UK, bread flour is about 11.5% not the 14%+ that is available and I've never really understood AP flour because it's not sold as such over here. But I gather it can be quite strong. If you found the dough quite wet you must be using quite a soft flour - nothing wrong with that. If you used a flour with more gluten it would absorb more water, so you would find it easier to handle, and it would provide more structure, so it could be easier to shape. You might get a better rise although I don't see anything wrong with your loaf. Flouring the work surface is also a matter of personal preference. I rarely use flour when I'm kneading but I always use it when I'm shaping - just enough so you are in control. Flouring you hands, which is usually overlooked by bread writers, is much more important. And any time dough starts to stick to your hands drop it on the work surface and flour your hands again. You loaf doesn't look as if the crust is burning to me - but again this is personal preference. If you think it is but the centre needs more, just turn down the oven to about 180C to finish off the bake. If in doubt check with a probe thermometer - the centre should be 96C+. Ice cubes? They're meant for cocktails. Bit early here yet ...

Well, there's a lesson in itself. Use what works best and not what you're supposed to use. And the crust in you photo looked beautifully thin.

Well, the theory is that creating steam in the oven slows down the formation of the crust when your dough goes into the oven allowing it to expand more and ensuring that you end up with a thin, crunchy crust. Professional bakers with deck ovens can do this with the push of a button. It has now become an article of faith that it is impossible for the home baker to make a good loaf without imitating this by using spray bottles, heating cast iron skillets in the bottom of the oven and lobbing in ice cubes, superheating lengths of chain and doing similar. All I can say is I can't see a difference if I try to create steam or if I don't - so I don't.