revised overnight sourdough, and the trouble with no bubbles

09 Thursday Jun 2016

Posted by Ardys in Food

Tags

bread, Food, homemade bread, sourdough bread, spelt bread

close up of the gorgeousness

If you don’t eat bread or are not a fan of cooking posts, you will want to find something else to read. Several of my readers are interested in this process, which is why I’m writing it; I’m not planning to become a food blog. Normal service will resume soon:)

Okay, so I know our winters are mild compared to the North American winters where I grew up. However, we do get very cold nights in the minus range (-6, 21F) and certainly in the low single digits regularly. Having no central heat, this means our house gets cold overnight. And the follow on from this means that my overnight proving of bread method (adapted from Celia’s original method here) needed to be altered.

Here is Celia’s latest adaptation of her overnight method, which incorporates some helpful videos and also adapts the recipe to a higher hydration and uses some spelt flour, but is mostly wheat. She does also have a 100% spelt recipe here, however it uses her normal wheat starter, I believe and mine uses a spelt starter.

Here is my latest adaptation of Celia’s latest overnight method which incorporates more hydration, more whole meal spelt, but is 100% spelt including the starter. I have also changed the timings to allow for the cooler winter temperatures.

Latest loaf from Revised Winter Sourdough recipe

and the crumb…

crumb from Revised Winter Sourdough recipe

Confused? Just use my latest method above for a higher hydration loaf that also incorporates more whole meal spelt, creating a more wholesome and flavourful loaf. If you get confused about technique, consult Celia’s blog, she is the expert and has great tutorials. I’m just learning, but my recipe does work, as you can see in the photos.

my secret weapon

I also want to share with those who bake bread, my secret weapon for those cold nights, which produce quite varied results in the proving stage of the overnight dough. Yes, I have a secret weapon that does not destroy life, but helps it along, especially if you are a little ‘yeastie’ living in sourdough, or if you have cold feet, but that’s another post… I present to you the rice filled heat bag. Not novel, probably been used to help bread raise before too, but it was new to me for this purpose so I thought I would share it.
In the morning if I find the overnight low in the house has prevented the dough from proving to the expansion it does in warmer weather I put the heat bag in the microwave for a minute on high. I then place it under the covered bowl to gently boost the proving activity. Also, I have found that doing the same thing by sandwiching the heat bag between two baking trays with the shaped loaf on the top tray, gently speeds up the raising process that might otherwise be painfully slow if you are waiting to bake due to other pressing things. Just make sure you only heat the bag to the normal temperature you would place it on your skin so the heat is a gentle one. You don’t want the dough to over-prove.

My starter has never had bubbles until today. It was an odd thing and why I didn’t give up on it I don’t know. From my first loaf of bread, I moved through the various steps of bred making based on times because here was no evidence of activity, until after the overnight prove and then it looks like this…

Dough after overnight prove

I did some reading this week and an experienced baker in Leura NSW says the starter needs to be kept in a plastic container with the lid ajar so that it gets air. This was the first I had heard this, so two days ago I tried it. Today when I needed to feed the starter before going away for a week, there were bubbles!! If you have thoughts on this, please leave them below. As I said, I’m still learning!

Also, please have a read of my friend Francesca’s bread baking adventures here, and my friend Sandra’s extra handy post with a calculation table for various amounts of starter so you will waste less. This incredible community continues to grow and develop much like the starter Celia began it all with. We are all part of a valuable movement that cares about the quality of our food, and those with whom we share it.

Happy baking. xx

Traveling on my stomach

28 Tuesday May 2013

Posted by Ardys in Food, Travel

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

bread, Darwin, Food, France, Russia, Spain, Travel

I am a woman who thinks about lunch while still eating breakfast. I regularly photograph my food and frequently the plates of those eating beside me. I’ve written a bit about food in early blogs (see Passing Great Grandma’s Baton) but decided I didn’t want to write a food blog, as such. However, I need to write about it occasionally. What am I going to do with all these photos if I don’t blog them now and then??

There are people who don’t really care about food except as sustenance. I am not one of them. If you are one of them, stop reading now, you won’t enjoy this post. Every morsel of food I eat is precious to me. If possible, I like it to be beautiful, delicious and healthy, all at the same time. When pressed, I will settle for two out of three, beautiful and delicious… or just delicious if it’s absolutely necessary. I’ve been known to choose rosy Corella pears at the grocery so I could photograph or draw them. Eating them later was the happy by-product. When we travel, I love to roam around fresh food markets, or gourmet shops, to learn about foods I’ve never eaten or even seen.

Who knew Lingonberries were plentiful in Sweden in September? Or the Germans make an awesome sweet cinnamon and sugar pretzel? The world is a giant food bowl of surprises.

We’ve had more than a few standout food moments in recent years. And I’ve photographed many of them! The creme brûlée below was one of them. Total surprise, recommended by our waitress at a pub called Le Winch Restaurant in Lyon, France. Honestly, it was almost worth a trip back.

Photographing food and publishing the photos is called ‘food porn’, did you know that? Very disappointing. The photos are nice mementos but hardly do justice to the joyous brain waves I had while eating the subject matter. Hmmmm, perhaps I do get the ‘porn’ reference….

Can I talk about bread for a moment? Specifically the croissant…in France… with a few tiny fragments of fresh butter here and there. Heaven. They are just not the same anywhere else. Sorry. I’ve done the research. Having said that, however, the Germans and the Russians know their way around a wonderful loaf of bread too, studded with fennel or caraway, rustic and crusty on the outside, chewy on the inside. And look at my English friend Joanna’s raisin kefir loaf! Salivating just writing about it…

The American Jewish delicatessens make Rueben sandwiches, and corned beef and fresh pickles like no one else. Remember the restaurant scene from the movie ‘When Harry Met Sally’? I’ve eaten there, and she was not faking it. She was having the best pastrami on rye of her life!! A good Deli (Katz Delicatessen) is a treasure to experience regularly. We have been known to stay in a hotel because we know it is near a good Deli. Seriously.

The Spanish know how to eat breakfast… luscious cheese in one hand, a sweet pastry in the other, and a side of fresh figs. OMG.

I fondly recall… Magnolia’s Restaurant in Charleston, my cousin’s awesome home cooking in Wyoming, delicious Alsace cuisine near Washington DC, spectacular whole Thai fish in Darwin, Tarte Tatin in Paris, the world’s best hot chocolate in Bratislava. I could go on, and on…