The Saturday Sourdough Pizza

Saturdays, I settle down to make a sourdough pizza for supper.
I use a recipe based on one by Giuseppe Mascoli and Bridget Hugo which I found on the Telegraph site.
This recipe is perhaps not for a sourdough beginner. But if you have the starter and have done some sourdough baking... give it a go. With sourdough you learn that it is wonderfully adaptable in its timing. Not ready to deal with it yet? Bung it in the fridge for a bit..... and so on. You also find that flours vary a lot in their behaviour so... each to their own favourites. With practice you also grow brave and know that you can knead and handle quite wet mixtures, you just have to be patient. Gently working it, or time itself, will bring the dough together. DO NOT panic and throw flour at it. Handling sticky doughs can be helped by oiling the work surface or your hands, even using a very little water to dip your fingers into whilst kneading (not enough to seriously add water to the dough, mind). If I need to use flour in the shaping stages, I flour my hand not the dough. Just remember...patience is a virtue....rest the dough and it gets its act together by itself in a surprising fashion.

My quantities will make enough pizza for two greedy people. It isn't "in the making" for as long as the original recipe which is started the night before. I start mine in the morning and let it rest until its final shaping and proving about an hour before baking. So that's about 7 or 8 hours. But... it isn't perhaps as well-behaved as the original. Well, what do you expect from me!

For the dough you need:
300g  strong flour (I use a mix of approx 280g Italian 00 wheat flour and 20g semolina);
2g salt (the original recipe calls for an equivalent of 10g salt... but we're not into that much salt on account of The Old Man's interesting state of health).
24g sourdough starter;
200g lukewarm water;
6g olive oil;

For Topping Sauce:
No need to cook down a tomato sauce, drowning the dough with sauce would make it too soggy, 2 or 3 tinned plum tomatoes squished, mixed with good dried oregano, seasoned to taste and set to drain in a sieve is all you need. Really.

Toppings: As you like.... a selection of... garlic, capers, stoned olives, sultanas (soaking in water beforehand helps stop them burning), pine kernels, sliced chilli, fresh herbs, anchovies, sliced sweet peppers and so on. Other ideas...soaked dried mushrooms (drained on kitchen paper), cooked squeezed spinach, thin courgette strips made using a potato peeler, thin slices of aubergine, slices of sausage of choice (The Old Man used best Cornish Hogs Pudding this week!). Finally Mozzarella and grated hard cheese such as Parmesan... (being veggie I like to use Old Winchester or the milder, creamier Fosse Way Fleece). And on and on, whatever you fancy dreaming up. Just not all at once. Less is more and simple is good.

So...  The Making:
In the morning put the flour and salt into large bowl. Into a smaller bowl or jug weigh the ridiculously small amount of sourdough starter and add the lukewarm water and the olive oil. Gently mix the liquids together.
Next add the liquid to the flour in stages, mixing with a spatula to bring the mixture together into a wet dough. Knead lightly for a short time (I use my spatula for this and keep the mixture in the bowl). Leave to rest for 15 minutes.
Knead again for 5 minutes. You can be brave and try this on a surface... but do not add flour. Give it a go.. you might be surprised how much it keeps itself together. Return it to the bowl and cover with cling film (or...I use cheap thin shower-caps that come in a pack). Rest for one hour. (The dough... but you may need a rest yourself.)
Next gather your courage. Oil your work surface and hands and tip your dough out. Shape into a round as for bread. (Gather it in gently and firmly by working around the outside and bringing the edges to the centre until it starts to tighten. Then turn the dough over and, with oiled hands, "chafe the dough", gently pushing the sides under whilst turning it. You should end up with a neat dome of dough.) Return shaped dough to an oiled bowl, brush with a very little olive oil and cover the bowl as before.

Leave to rest until an hour or so before baking. This time you flour your work-surface and turn the dough out. Divide it into two (we are greedy) or more pieces. Take each piece and shape (with floured hands) as you would for rolls. (Same process as above... bringing dough into centre before the final turning over and chafing.) Place the two or more pieces to rest on a linen cloth (couche) on a tray.. covering with same cloth. If you don't have a couche, try a floured tea towel. Leave to rest for an hour whilst you prepare your toppings and heat oven..
Bring oven up to top temperature. (I have a fan oven which I set to top heat of 240 C (475F or Gas 9 - Edit: Ooops Sorry! Top temp on my oven is 260 C, so... hot as you can go.). And prepare two baking sheets by sprinkling their surfaces generously with semolina.
Now is NOT the time to use a rolling pin, it's hands or nuthin' so take a deep breath, oil the surface and your hands and stretch each ball of dough in turn over oiled hands or on the oiled surface into something approaching a plate-sized round (mine are more often squarish but I ain't perfect and neither are me pizzas.) Do not stretch the dough too thin in the centre but do allow the edges to remain thicker so that they make  a natural rim.  Still breathing calmly and praying... or in my case shouting.... transfer each pizza base onto a sheet.
Spread the seasoned tomato pieces on each base...don't be frightened of seeing the dough between the tomato pieces... and arrange your toppings of choice on top. Finish with grated cheese and a little more olive oil sprinkled across the surface of each pizza.
Place the sheets into the hot oven and cook for about 10-12 minutes or until you think all is golden, melted, puffed and lovely. (Check the oven occasionally and lower the temperature a little if you think things are burning too much.)
Serve hot after a lot more shouting as you juggle with serving spatulas to get each one off their sheet and on to their plate. Smack lips and pour out the red wine. Delizioso.

The Old Man Bakes Bread Again

For friends and foes who wonder about The Old Man's hand problems...
Still not quite right. But he be getting back into the swing of baking bread with a largely one-handed approach to bread shaping...
He is getting back on form, though he do say his starter be getting  a bit "thin"... and therefore he still be fretting.

Sourdough - The Ideal Bread For Powercut Baking

That other day when the power went off for nearly 24 hours... I discovered something else good about baking your own sourdough bread. We have an electric oven and I have already started some bread dough to rise when... the power goes "Phut".
Do not panic, say I to meself. You can make sourdough into a really "slow food". I did whack the bowl of dough in the still cold but non-functioning fridge and....
Next day, when the power came back, I did stab the little rascal back down a bit, waited for it to get back to room temperature... shaped it, proved it... and baked it.
No problem.
The virtues of sourdough.

Bread Alone

One thing about taking over bread duties... is that I'm not so bad at making it now. (I'm not showing you the first loaf, mind.)
The Old Man do instruct on basic sourdough loaf "recipe proportions and oven heat" like so:
500gm flour of choice;
250gm sourdough starter (my starter is 100% hydration = 1 measure of flour to 1 measure liquid when feeding);
250gm tepid water;
and about half or whole tsp of salt.
(Basically that is 2 parts flour to 1 part each "starter" and water.)
Oven heat (on our oven - top and bottom heat) is 225 C and time is 30mins with another five minutes with the heat turned off.
This loaf has been proved in a well-floured proving basket and baked on a hot iron (Steel) plate that The Old Man uses for the purpose in the oven.

What makes differences can be the flours. Not just whether they are wholemeal (which can need some of the water to be added later in the kneading process 'cos it takes time to absorb the water) or refined ...but also which grain the flour is milled from ... or even ... which brand or mill. Takes practice to get to know how the different flours behave. Don't be scared if the dough seems a bit (not a lot, mind) too wet to handle or knead easily. My tip is to flour your hand rather than the dough.. and to have patience. Sometimes all you need is to let the dough sit for a few minutes and it catches up with itself in that crazy amalgamating way of bread dough. (For all the details of the process find a  good bread-making book or Google it! cos I didn't mean to do a full how-to post.... and I ain't that much of an expert.)

But.... if at first you don't succeed. Take courage. Keep baking.

Sunday Morning

...Spending it chasing off the sparrowhawk who is patiently and outrageously waiting on a stake next to the bird feeder... queuing at the "canteen". Shoo... shoo ... shoo go I.

Spending it holding up the bean canes whilst The Old Man hammers more stakes into the ground and we tie it all together... against the forecasted gales.

Spending it up to me wrists in brioche dough... massaging in the butter .... gloop... yum.

Spending it listening to The Old Man's CD of  Ry Cooder & Corridos Famosos "Live in San Francisco".

Sour Bakes As Sour Is: Bad Bagels And The Rebuild Of The Sourdough Starter

I now admit that I have been bereft of bagel-baking skills. Three ... yes three ... failed bagel batches what do sink to the bottom of the boiling pan like stones... and never do float. Yes, I do think you have to make sure you know your flour as I do say when the first batch fails but now I admit there is more to the problem.

With the change to warmer weather it appears that my "starter leaven" have just excelled itself in sourness and have become like over-excitable battery acid. The Old Man pronounces that this be the problem. My starter fails to "start" raising my dough... it do become so acid it be the death of it.

Solution? The Old Man starts by tiffing out good quantity of the leaven and feeding it with plenty more flour and water. I decide to keep it in the fridge rather than the kitchen porch. We do work like this for several days until the texture thicker and bubbly (it have gone thin and bubbly).

Yesterday I do make bagels again but do not worry about the overnight chilling of the shaped bagels in the fridge. I just do go for it and boil and bake when they do look ready. The Old Man thinks these are the best yet... though my confidence be shot and I don't know. But for sure the little darlings buzzed around the top of that boiling pan like water beetles... They ain't for sinking. Good news is we's back on track and a sharp eye will be kept on the starter during the summer.

I do wonder if I do curse my leaven with my constant current anger ... I have sometime said of people they be so sour they do curdle their milk. Well I think I may have become so sour that I have turned my leaven into acid and sunk me bagels!

Today I Have Mostly Made... Flat Bagels

My first failure in the Sunday Breakfast ritual of bagel-baking. No. I do not show you a picture of them.
So let this be a warnin' to all of you beginner bread bakers like moi..... The flour makes all the difference.

I did use a perfectly good flour... stoneground strong white... but it do behave differently from others I have used up to now.

Result? The dough looked dark and the bagels sank to the bottom of the boiling pot.... like bricks. I have never seen this before.

Did I eat any? Do chefs wear hats? Of course I do eat some. Tasted fine but... they be flat and dense
Moral? Know your flours. Believe it or not the milling makes all the difference to how it behaves when you bake with it.

Sourdough Hot Cross Buns

Not very glamorous  But they do taste good and are like buns rather than the  "caky" textured things what I have made in the past. Like all things sourdough they do need some planning and I started the pre-ferment mix last night then made up the dough this morning.... eventual baking by mid afternoon.

The Old Man have eaten three already.... not sure that's wise.

The recipe comes from "SourDom" on Sourdough Companion.... although I scrunched up the ferment/proving time considerably. It makes a very soft dough so again a bit of experience (or nerve) needed in handling it. I also used slightly smaller quantity of dried fruit 'cos I couldn't imagine getting it all in. The rest is as in recipe but smaller quantity of glaze.

They may not look that special but they be all mine.... whilst they stay out of The Old Man's clutches.

Herman Goes To Italy: Sourdough Grissini

Breadsticks......

My "Herman" starter continues to explore the world and its own capabilities... and to make bagels (Sunday morning breakfast routine), crispbreads and even some sweet buns.

Today he have turned into sourdough grissini... otherwise known as breadsticks. These are a bit tricky to make because the dough is hard to handle because it is very moist. But I am learning that if handling is difficult then the passage of time does a lot of the work for you! Also a dough scraper (courtesy of The Old Man) be very useful for doughs so wet they have to be practically scooped up off the work surface. And if dough is wet don't flour the work surface and your hands for "kneading" (Ho-Ho).... use a little oil instead.

Anyway the recipe comes from the lovely WildYeast blog. And you can find it here.

Herman Stays Swedish

Yes indeed. Still baking with Herman the sourdough starter. This lot are Swedish Cardamom Buns from Sourdough Companion.

They's all gone now. Yum Yum.

In Which Herman Travels To Scandinavia...

... indeed "Herman" my sourdough starter is now positively crisp on the subject. Ho-Ho. I do use him to bake some "crispbread" from Andrew Whitley's book "Bread Matters". The recipe is  not specifically sourdough but lists a proportion of prefermented "sponge" which enables me to have a go.

 "Bread Matters" is a weighty book of great detail. It have rather daunted one or two would-be bread makers that me and The Old Man do know. But now I have my adaptable beast of a sourdough starter, "Herman", I do boldly go... These darlings do stand up for themselves and do pack a snap. Wish I could say the same for myself.

And what precisely does Herman the Sourdough starter consist of these days?

Herman sits in a bowl in the kitchen porch. He be covered with a modest plastic showercap to keep him snug. He do get all stirred up with a spatula every day. And every four days or so he gets built up with the addition of half cup strong white wheat flour and half cup of soya milk. (This last is just a kind of hangover from the original recipe.... most sourdoughs are fed with water and flour.) Every week, the day before I bake I add more flour and soya milk (same proportions) and split the result... putting about half (usually about 250 to 300 gms) back in the Herman bowl... cover with showercap and put it back in the porch. I put the other half in a mixing bowl and bring it into the kitchen... ready for use in the bake.

I must say I am a bit surprised that I be baking like this. OK, where shall Herman and I go next?

The Reshaping Of Herman

Or rather... the reshaping of Herman-the-German-friendship-cake "starter"....

Because Herman is not as he was when I received him. Then ... he be fed on flour, sugar and milk as per his recipe. To be honest, he be a pale and lazy type... frequently smelling of alcohol.

Anyways I start to substitute the dairy milk with good unsweetened soya milk when he need feeding. (A remnant from my vegan days which I still prefer for some things.... Yes? What? Yes I did once be a vegan .... for several years... and jolly healthy I did feel on it too but cappuccinos with friends set off the moral rot, plus I do get tired of justifying my food faddism with so-called friends who do not understand my views. I backslid into straightforward vegetarianism thus lessening some of the criticism. What? I do not say I be a Heroine!)

Back to Herman. Next - I kinda do not see what the sugar is for.... because The Old Man makes sourdough bread from his "starter" fed on straightforward flour and water which he has kept bubbling away for about five years now. So.... I stop adding sugar to Herman's feeds.

And this is what he is today. A lean beast of strong white flour and soya milk who lives in a covered bowl in the kitchen porch being fed on same about every four-five days. Now he is thicker, bubbles a bit ... and he smells of yeast rather than alcohol. So.... for you who be interested in the conversion and reshaping of Herman into brioche (ooh-la-la) and bagels (oy-veh).... This is how he lost flab and be made strong.

In Which Herman Becomes Jewish

My "Herman the German Friendship Cake Starter" is continuing to travel and transmogrify. I did tell you about this dollop of sourdough in another post ....in which it successfully sampled being French and turning into Brioche. This weekend it successfully turned itself into Bagels. It's a right little chameleon.

The recipe came from Sourdough Companion again. I just lessened the quantity a little... based on their Baker's Percentage ingredients... and was most surprised to have Bagels for Sunday Breakfast. Next time I will try cooking at 225C for a little shorter time.... cos it has to be admitted that these are of course delicious but be a trifle.... crusty. Their recipe for Sourdough bagels be here.

In Which Herman Is Frenchified

You may remember that some months ago I be given the starter and recipe for a Herman German Friendship cake. (See here for that post.) Not to be outdone I do persevere in experimenting with the recipe for the cake: soya milk instead of dairy in the starter, less sugar in the starter, less baking powder and less sugar in the cake, sour cherries, white chocolate, prunes, apricots, crystallised ginger.... you name it, I poke it in. The cake always tastes good but I never never have found the right baking time and temperature. It has nice sourdoughish holes in it but it always ends up solid and undercooked in the middle.

Some things in the recipe don't seem to conform with the principles of sourdough baking.... which The Old Man do frequently educate me in.... The original recipe uses baking powder in addition to the "starter" and allows no time for proving. So what is the point of the sourdough starter?

During all of this frantic Herman experimenting time... my sugar-restricted-soyamilk-instead-of-dairy "starter" be getting feistier and feistier. Instead of smelling of alcohol it starts to smell of yeast. And it do start to bubble away with vigour. So I decide that my next "cake" will be a kugelhopf and I will be brave and rely on the starter alone to raise the cake.

Looking around the internet for some guidance I do find a very helpful site - "Sourdough Companion". And there I do find, instead of a kugelhopf, a recipe for sourdough brioche. I do nerve myself up and commence the long.... very long... process for to make this French beauty... with my startled and somewhat altered Herman the German starter jollop. And here is the result.

OK. Not in dainty French shape or in buns... I's too much of a beginner to fully master the shaping process so I just about manage eventually to tiff the dough into loaf tins. I bake them at around 200C for ten minutes then down to around 185C for 30-35 minutes. Here is the original recipe from "Graham" at Sourdough Companion.

I have never baked or eaten brioche before. But whatever this is.... it be nice.
Ooh-la-la! Sugar-free Herman enjoys things French.

Herman And The Old Man

Needless to say that there have been variable results with Herman the Cake (see previous post). The Old Man has passed precise judgement on them all. But none have gone to waste.

Remember. The Old Man is really A Dog... Woof-Woofing down every last flawed crumb.

That Herman Friendship Thing

A few weeks ago I be given a recipe for a cake and a bowl of jollop. Turns out that that is "Herman the Friendship Cake". The jollop is a starter mix (kind of like a sourdough starter that works from natural yeasts) which you feed occasionally with flour and stuff, and stir everyday, and about every ten days you give two portions of starter away to friends, bake a cake with a third portion and retain the last portion as a starter for the next cake. And then the whole thing happens again.

I do quickly work out that I do not have enough friends for this project but that I do like the idea of a yeasty cake. The Old Man steps in and tells me that if I just half the quantity of "food" for the starter... I can just half the eventual mix and forget about any friends! This do seem to work and Hermann becomes the "Selfish Cake" ...or "How to have your cake and eat it too". And I do religiously do this thing and try improving the variable results with a dutiful sense of responsibility towards my friendly cake donor.

When I do ask my friendly cake donor how she be getting on with it, she do tell me that she couldn't be bothered with all of that and did throw the starter jollop away.

Do you recognise that feeling that one has been over-conscientious?

Rural life: Bread

This is a picture of The Old Man's bread. He bakes very good bread. No machine ... no ... noo. Hands on breadmaking and sourdough starter. At the moment we have seedy topped milk loaf, crusty white, sour rye, and bits of saffron bun in stock. This quantity is unusual. But friends called in on a visit the other day, and you never know what you will need.

They left quite late in the starry rural dark. I hope they found their way back to their rented cottage in the creeky byways of Helford. They hadn't brought their torch.