Birdseed Sourdough

Day 105: The sound you just heard was my palm connecting with my forehead. "Why didn't I think of this a long time ago?" I've been making sourdough bread in my Dutch oven for almost two years now, and it only just occurred to me to substitute a little millet flour to make my delicious "birdseed bread." The recipe calls for 460 grams of white flour. For this first experiment, I used 50 grams of millet and 410 of regular bread flour. The interior of the loaf was more yellow and had a nice, subtle crunch while remainng moist, and I did NOT need to add gluten for a good rise. The flavour isn't quite as nutty as my original birdseed bread, so I will try increasing the amount of millet flour slightly the next time I bake, and I may toss in one or two tablespoons of golden flax seed. Birdseed bread has always been one of my favourite loaves.

Refining A Recipe

Day 40: When can you call a recipe "original?" I've heard it said that you have to change at least three ingredients, but with basic breads, that's nearly impossible. I found a recipe for Dutch oven raisin bread on line, and when I made it, I wasn't fully satisfied with the results. With over 50 years of bread-baking experience behind me (I've made all my own bread since I was in my early 20s), I was confident that I could make adaptations which would yield the loaf I wanted. I changed proportions, used regular yeast instead of instant, revised the number and length of rise times. My version is slightly less hydrated which makes the dough easier to handle, although it's still quite sticky. I know some of you were waiting for this adaptation, so here ya go! If you don't have a banneton, simply shape your loaf by hand.

Crow's Dutch Oven Raisin Bread

400 g bread flour
1 tablespoon white sugar
1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon table salt
½ teaspoon yeast
1/4 cup warm water for yeast
1 1/4 cups warm water (110 degrees F)
1/2 cup raisins

Soften yeast in 1/4 cup warm water for 10 minutes. Stir together flour, sugar, cinnamon and salt. Pour in warm water and yeast. Stir until a shaggy, wet dough forms. Stir in raisins and mix until evenly distributed. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set in a warm place to raise for 45 minutes.

Sprinkle a clean work surface with a little flour. Scrape dough out onto the prepared surface and use a bench scraper knead and fold for a few minutes, adding only enough flour to keep it from sticking to your hands. Let rise for an additional 45 minutes.

Scrape dough out onto a floured surace and knead for several minutes. Place a piece of parchment paper in a banneton, folding so that it sits flat against the bowl. Place dough onto the parchment paper in the banneton and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise for another hour. Halfway through this third rise, begin heating a Dutch oven to 400 degrees.

At the end of the final rise time, remove the dough from the banneton on its parchment paper and slash in a few places. Transfer dough with the parchment liner into the Dutch oven. Cover with a lid. Bake on center rack.

Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake for 5 minutes more. Remove from the oven and carefully transfer bread onto a wire rack to cool completely before slicing.

Aroma Therapy

Day 59: The holidays are a stressful time, and right now, I'm grouchy as an old bear. Things are just not going smoothly. They're not going particularly badly, but multiple small annoyances are piling up in drifts, and the feeling of impending avalanche hangs over my head like the Sword of Damocles. I haven't been able to get out into the woods for what feels like weeks, so I decided it was time for some indoor aroma therapy. Go ahead, try to top the fragrance of freshly baked bread, I dare ya! You can keep your evergreen boughs, your scented candles, even the smell of cookies straight out of the oven. Nothing beats the fragrance of bread. Bread, of course, is not holiday-specific, at least not around here. It happens once a fortnight at the very least, generally every ten days, but somehow I had gotten ahead of myself and wound up with a freezer full of sourdough. I just thawed the last batch yesterday, so it was time to make more bread. This no-knead Dutch-oven loaf has become my favourite. Will it chase the grumps away? Maybe I should eat a slice while it's still warm, you know, like for good measure?

Turning Over A New Loaf

Day 221: It's almost impossible to kill a sourdough starter, but between refrigerator failure and stress overload which compelled me to make quicker breads, my starter died. Or at least I thought it did, which is one and the same thing because I threw it out. Maybe there was something else going on. I'm not sure. In any case, I was unable to make sourdough for several months until my weaving friend Ed gave me a fresh start; literally, as in "half a cup." It needed to be bulked up before there was enough to make my usual recipe, but it turned out a nicely tangy loaf, although the rise could have been better. I settled down with YouTube in the hopes of finding some clue as to the reason, and in so doing, I discovered the enchanting subject of making bread in a Dutch oven. The technique is particularly suited to sourdough.

These days, anyone who has a camera and the ability to process videos can make themselves sound like they know their business. There are a lot of people on YouTube who do not. After watching any number of self-proclaimed experts, I turned to my favourite British chef for a workable recipe. John Kirkwood's instructions are clear, simple and virtually idiot-proof, as my first Dutch oven loaf proves. I did make a few minor adaptations, the first being that he did not allow for saving any of the sponge for a subsequent loaf. I fed my starter a couple of days ahead to be sure I had enough in reserve after removing the amount called for in his recipe. The second alteration I made was that I dumped the final proof out of the banneton onto a sheet of parchment paper which I then lifted into the hot Dutch oven rather than turning it directly into the pot. Otherwise, I followed his instructions exactly. The crust was a little less crisp than I'd expected, so next time, I will raise the oven temp from his recommendation of 430° F to 450° F, and will pre-heat the Dutch oven for 45 minutes instead of 30. Those changes are noted in the recipe below.

Sponge
100 g starter
100 g water
100 g bread flour

Dough
460 g bread flour
230 g water
1 Tbsp veg oil
1 1/2 tsp kosher salt (or 1 tsp table salt)

Feed starter 1:1:1 two days before Baking Day.

From the newly fed starter, make sponge the night before (at least six hours). No sponge will be returned to the starter jar.

Using the 300 g sponge, add water and mix well. Add oil and mix well. Add all the flour and the salt. Mix well. Dough will be wet at first, then may seem too dry. DO NOT ADD MORE FLOUR OR WATER. Cover and proof for 45 minutes. Pour dough out onto work surface and do a few rounds of stretch-and-fold. Wet your hands to keep the dough from sticking to them. Cover and proof for an additional 45 minutes.

Coat banneton with rice flour. This is how the dough is shaped for transferring to the Dutch oven. Alternately, if you want to dust some seeds on the surface of the bread, use a round-bottomed pan which has been greased with a little butter and oil instead of a banneton. Sprinkle seeds into pan.

Do another quick stretch-and-fold. Shape the loaf gently into a round ball, smooth on top. Transfer to the banneton/pan with the smooth side down. Dust lightly with flour and cover. Let rise for another hour. Fifteen minutes in, start preheating the Dutch oven in a 450 degree oven. It will be nice and hot at the end of the 1-hour rise period.

When the final rise is complete, tip the dough out onto a sheet of parchment paper and place into the HOT Dutch oven. Slash the loaf if desired. Put the lid on and bake for 30 minutes. Remove lid and bake for an additional three to five minutes to brown the surface.