I Baked my Pet and It Was Good!

No it's not a pet dog nor a pet cat.

My pet is wild yeast, captured in a bottle - a sourdough starter. And now meet it's reincarnation

 

And this is how I made it!

First - the sponge. The sponge is made of the sourdough starter, taken out from the fridge and emptied into a bowl.... 

...mixed with a cup of flour (I used wholemeal flour because for some reason I ran out of plain flour!) and a cup of warm water.

Mix well, and leave in a warm place to ferment. 

You know it's ready when it's bubbly, frothy, and smells sour (!) - this one even had a bit of hooch - the beer-smelling water sitting on top of the mixture. The longer you leave it, the more sour the sponge would be.I made this on a really hot and humid Melbourne summer day so this did not take too long (around an hour). In some instances it could take overnight.

Before you get carried away this step is important, as it ensures a constant supply of starter!!! Ladle some back on to your trusty wide mouthed jar (rinsed from before!) and give it a fresh feed of 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 cup water, and put it back in the fridge. (at this point I have replenished the supply of plain flour in the pantry). 

To make the dough, I used 

2 cups sponge

around 3 cups of plain flour

2 tsps sugar and 2 tsps salt

a healthy dose of extra virgin olive oil 

Mix in the flour a little at a time and knead until the dough is elastic. Let the dough rise in a warm place - this happened overnight in my case (it varies from place to place!)

When dough has risen, punch down and knead lightly (I just gave it a couple of folds and turns) and shaped it into however which way you would like - I just made mine like this and placed it in a baking tray sprinkled with a bit of coarse semolina.

A couple of lazy slashes by a sharp knife on sticky dough resulted to not-so-pretty top slashes! Ah well, pardon me, I'm new to the sourdough stuff :) I find that the dough really felt different compared to breads made with instant yeast that I've done before. 

I covered it with a tea towel and left to rise again for a couple of hours (around 3).

Then we're ready to bake! I've read that it's best to NOT pre-heat the oven and to place a container with water at the bottom rack of the oven for extra moisture. I set it to 180C and placed the dough in the middle rack. I saw a video on youtube where the dough was sprayed with water every 5-10 minutes while it is baking, to create a crispy surface. The bubbles that evaporate create this crunchy surface. The bread was done in 30 minutes (or when the bottom sounds hollow when tapped).

It was indeed a crunchy crust, and it turned out to be soft and fluffy inside. The flavor was unmistakably 'sour', and will definitely be part of more rounds of experimentation as I try to learn more on - ahem - 'artisan breads'. :D hahaha!

 Now - not everything turns out right the first time in this kitchen - the photo below was actually my first sourdough bread. As I got the timings wrong, the second rising took overnight, and resulted to a VERY sour bread!

it was still a crunchy crust, but very dense, quite flat, and very sour. didn't stop me from making another one, did it?

I would love to get my hands on any of the books by this guy who's received excellent reviews on his books on bread. Next on the to-buy list!