Faux or dough? | Sourdough bread

Faux or dough? | Sourdough bread

The verdict on my sour dough is that it's delicious and I am now an enthusiast (not my bread pictured).

The Age had a great article on sour dough today, quoting some wonderful local producers and bemoaning the pretenders who don't make real sour dough.  Apparently if you add a tiny amount of citric acid to your dough it helps improve the loaf rise without any flavour change - could be tempting, but that would be cheating. The Age goes on to say -

"As well as commercial yeast, chemical dough improvers, vinegars and sour powders are part of the grab-bag of tricks used in some of the mass-produced stuff. There is broad support among craft bakers for a national standard such as that in France, where the appellation ''pain au levain'' excludes additives and allows a maximum of 0.02 per cent yeast".

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/restaurants-and-bars/faux-or-dough-20110806-1ig3j.html#ixzz1UXFiIuuC

I'm sure that Helgas sour dough soft  stuff isn't the real thing.  I'm all for products having to be labelled correctly, damn GM produce seems to be turning up in more and more of our food.

sour dough 2nd attempt

Not to be put off by my slightly stodgy first attempt, and somewhat rude comments by my partner, I tried baking sour dough again this weekend.  I have kept feeding that mother since my last attempt and she was getting big. This time I tried  Slow Living Essential's Mixed Grain Sour Dough and a revisit to the date and pecan loaf only with a few raisins thrown in for variety - 4 loaves in total.

As I am not a morning person the slow making of sour dough doesn't entirely suit my day and I have attempted a two day technique again.  This time I made the mix, left it to rest for 3 hours, then added salt, then put it in the fridge.  The following day my partner pulled it out of the fridge to warm up while I lay in bed with pancakes and the newspaper, my slovenly though wonderfully indulgent Sunday routine.

Then I removed the dough, folded it and let it sit on the bench under a vintage tea towel blanket.  I am a lazy cook and couldn't be bothered with cleaning and oiling my bowls straight away.  I returned every half hour and refolded the dough (maybe 4 times in total)

I then placed the dough on trays under glad wrap and waited for them to rise. After inspecting my oven I realised they weren't all going to fit, 2 at a time was ideal, 3 at a push, certainly not four. So much for saving electricity with a bulk bake.

We were going out and I was getting impatient so I baked one loaf, it seems a bit flat and I'm guessing a little moist to put it politely. I'll cut it tomorrow for the true test.

After getting back from our lovely big family pizza get together with the wise and ancient Nan, I baked the remaining loaves.  I think they were happier for the longer rise and have risen much more successfully.  I also set the oven lower (as our oven bakes extra hot) so they are a prettier golden sheen on this attempt.  The proof will be in tomorrows tasting but the kids are very excited about breakfast!

My first sour dough - yummy, if a little stodgy, date loaf

Slow Living Essentials very kindly gave me a jar of creamy coloured liquid last week and I have been nurturing it ever since.  The 'mother' is such a strange thing and I am a bit nervous when handling it.  It's quite demanding, wanting only cooled boiled water and flour preferably organic and rye.  Fortunately it is quite forgiving and has still bubbled peacefully when given  a half a cup of el cheapo  non-organic white flower and wholemeal plain.  It has grown, and grown, and grown, and I decided that I'd better start using it not just feeding it or I'd soon have a mountain of goo taking over the kitchen. So with much trepidation I followed Christine's recipe for Date and Nut Sourdough Loaves.

The mother - bubbling.  My little one likes to add the flour and water to this and give it a stir, she also swiped a taste, that might teach my ever present helper to ask before licking.

Mixing the bread - eventually got my hands in that sticky mess

did some of this watching Gardening Australia.  Yes a little late in the day to start making sour dough but I figured better late than never.  I folded the dough a couple of times as instructed but at midnight decided I'd leave the dough to deal with in the morning

 What I woke up to, that mother had been doing her job!

 Fashioned it into two big loaves, waited about an hour (hmmm on re-reading this might have been a bit quick).  Perhaps the leaving overnight also not a great idea?

 Attempted to score, and then put fat looking loaves in the oven.  Next mistake, my nasty el cheapo oven runs hotter than it says and is hotter on one side but I didn't make any allowances for this.  Think this may have prematurely darkened the loaves as I followed all the times Christine suggested - checking at lower time intervals to be on the safe side.

 The end result was overly dark loaves that are very moist in the middle. We and the neighbours kids didn't mind and gave it a good munching hot from the oven. Still very edible and has made a lovely treat as toast the last couple of days.  Twas lunch for three today with snotty one home sick.  looking forward to finishing it off tomorrow, toasted with lashings of butter as Christine recommended.

Datey pecan goodness.