Adventures in sourdough

[wildeabandon]

Like lots of people, I've stepped up my home baking during lockdown, and am now reliably turning out a loaf of bread for the household every day or two, but occasionaly I try to be a bit more adventurous.

The last couple of days have been pretty successful. Last week I made my first attempt at sourdough pizza, and the verdict from the household was that I definitely needed more practice, but it was tasty enough that me getting this practice was anticipated with pleasure. This time I decided to make a double batch of dough and make some simple marinara pizzas as practice at lunchtime, before doing something more complicated for everyone for dinner later in the week. The main flaw in the first batch was that they were a little too doughy, and my next attempt slightly overcompensated for that - it came out gorgeously crisp, but rather burninated on the bottom. I was still entirely happy to scarf it down though, and just made another one for Ramesh. That one came out, if I do say it myself, pretty much perfectly crisp, and not even slightly burnt. I'm not 100% certain I have it down to the point where I can hit that perfection consistently, but I feel pretty confident that I can get there with a few more goes.

Also on an Italian theme, I made my first attempt at foccacia this morning, and that was utterly delicious. It does have the drawback that comes with home baking of being aware of just how much oil goes into the thing, but oh, it's lovely. Crisp on top and soft and unctuous inside, and lots of lovely fruity salty flavours. It was also tremendous fun to make. The way the dough slips and slides over your hands as you mix in the oil is almost sinful.

Comments

[the_elyan]

I have discovered the joys of (hopefully) high-quality sourdough through our new artisan baker, which means every so often I get through a 600g-ish loaf in a day.

Related, and apologies if I've already recommended this, Robin Sloan's book "Sourdough" is terrific fun: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/17/sourdough-robin-sloan-review

[wildeabandon]

Ooh, that does look rather fun. I'll add it to the list :)

[judiff]

Have you ever done the like insinuating portions of soft butter into the dough for brioche? It like goes through a sticky, worrying phase each time but then it all like magically comes together and is all soft and luscious and you feel really clever (and your hands are all soft and moisturised!)

[wildeabandon]

I've never done brioche. I sometimes make a pain de mie, which has some butter in, and you get a bit of that effect, but probably not to the same extent.

[charlie]

I don't know if it's the same when you make sourdough pizza, but when I make regular pizza I cook my dough mostly all the way through before then topping it and cooking the toppings. Do you do that with sourdough?

[wildeabandon]

The way I've been doing it is starting it out on a cast iron baking stone which I heat up on the hottest ring on the hob, and then moving the stone under the grill, so it gets about one minute cooking from underneath, whilst I put the toppings on, and then another 2-3 minutes cooking from both sides, which seems to work perfectly as long as I get the stone exactly the right temperature to start with.

[charlie]

Ah! You have a much better setup than I do :)

[wildeabandon]

I've certainly completely buggered any suggestion that doing my own baking might be a sensible economic choice, given how much I've spent on fancy baking equipment in the last few months... Maybe if I keep it up for the next decade or so it'll balance out ;)

[charlie]

Home baking, in my experience, is rarely more economically efficient than buying equivalents. But it's so much nicer :D

...And your wholegrain smells of elderflowers

[hairyears]

You might *just* find some late elderflowers in the shady corners of hedgerows and woddlands near you...

Shake it over the sourdough starter culture, and some of the wild yeast 'blush' on the elderflowers will get in: it imparts a delicate elderflower fragrance to your bread for months.