Since yesterday's Scottish Buttermilk Bread didn't meet our bread needs for the week, and since I haven't used my sourdough sponge (starter) in a month, I decided to make some sourdough bread today.
Actually, I made that decision late last night and added two cups of white flour and two cups of water to the cup of sponge I had in the refrigerator. It needed to sit on the counter overnight to get well activated for baking this morning. I always enjoy seeing proof of yeasty activity when I take the lid off the bowl and see the happy, bubbly sponge. (If you make sourdough, make sure you just loosely cover the bowl overnight. I had the lid blow off of a Tupperware bowl one time when I snapped it on tightly. Very exciting!)
Just for fun, and to put to use some of what I've been learning as I work my way through Bernard Clayton's Complete Book of Breads, I adjusted the recipe I follow in Sourdough Jack's Cookery. My copy of this little book is from the 1970 printing and you can tell - it's well stained and falling apart.
The recipe uses the old-school method of mixing yeast with warm milk and then adding that to the dry ingredients and sponge. As I've noted previously, Clayton says that modern yeast is meant to be mixed with the flour first and then have 120-130 degree water mixed in. I decided to take a chance and mix all the dry ingredients together while I melted the butter and honey in very hot water. I then stirred the sponge into the flour mixture and then stirred in the hot water mixture. I let that all sit for 30 minutes while Thane and I enjoyed the hot tub.
Dry and dressed, I returned to the kitchen to find bubbly beauty in my bowl. If you're using sourdough and your batter doesn't look like the photo to the right at some point in time, something's wrong. You need to see signs of life or you may need to sponge.
The other change I implemented was kneading longer than I used to. Sourdough Jack calls for kneading 100 times "until the dough is light and satiny to the touch." I don't have the patience to count that high, so I decided to follow other recipes which recommend 8-10 minutes of kneading. If you've never done that, let me tell you that 8-10 minutes is a really long time. I kneaded up a sweat and gave my arms and shoulders a good workout. Thane commented that he'd never seen anyone knead so vigorously, so I may have been working harder than necessary. I also made sure I kneaded out any residual stickiness rather than continuing to add flour.
The bread came out wonderfully! The crust is crispy and the crumb light and fluffy. It's even a uniform golden brown over the whole loaf. Now to have the willpower to not pig out on it!
