I know that the blog's been a little bread-heavy lately, but I already lost a significant amount of time in taking these pictures, so now you're going to lose an equally-significant amount of your life reading about them.
I had a difficult time making any good sourdough bread for quite a while (examine the two loaves below on the right). During that period I enjoyed some nice sourdough pancakes and quite a few pizza crusts. The loaves of bread were elusive however. I finally decided to put the jar of sourdough in the corner of the fridge for a time-out until it learned its lesson.
Frustrated, I moved on to some other nice recipes, such a slightly-sweet swedish rye bread (loaves on the left). I baked those loaves mostly just to teach the jar of sourdough that it could be done.
After a sufficient break I decided to try the sourdough again. This time I approached it with some changes. First, I added a significant amount of yeast. I know that a long rise leads to better taste, but I was surprised how long it would take to rise in the past. Sometimes overnight wasn't even enough. I also did away with the recipes, since those clearly weren't working. Below is the resulting loaf. It's a little uneven and didn't rise quite as much as I'd hoped, but at least it's edible this time.
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Hmm, "difficult time" indeed. What is that loaf in the upper right corner? Looks like an overturned shoe to me.
ReplyDeletepoor little jar of sourdough! I'm sure it was doing the best it could. sometimes it's hard to be sour...
ReplyDeleteMaybe you don't need more yeast, just more starter. How much do you put in? I do like the looks of that Swedish Rye, though. If I can remember, I'll post Rachel's Swedish Rye recipe that was passed down from her Grandma Rachel. I wonder if you could make a Sourdough Swedish Rye.
ReplyDeleteWhy am I not surprised that you did away with the recipes, and instituted your own changes? And this, from a mother who wouldn't dare deviate from the recipe! Not sure if it's Grandma Barnhart or Grandpa Schotts, you got it from, but you sure got IT!
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