Holiday Madness

Our Daring Bakers Host for December 2011 was Jessica of My Recipe Project and she showed us how fun it is to create Sour Dough bread in our own kitchens! She provided us with Sour Dough recipes from Bread Matters by AndrewWhitley as well as delicious recipes to use our Sour Dough bread in from Tonia George’s Things on Toast and Canteen’s Great British Food!


Last month, I finally decided to sign up for Daring Bakers. I miss the challenges like Cupcake Hero, and I need something else to feed my inspiration, since I still haven't won the jackpot and can't open a bakery yet. 


What a time to sign up!


Amidst cookie swaps, trips home to roll a couple thousand cookies for our annual cookie count and giveaway to friends, several new ideas to try out, and crocheting for hours to get my Christmas presents done and attempt to get in the holiday spirit, I made sourdough; this month's challenge recipe.


I've made sourdough-based bread a couple times before; but I get impatient with the starter or decide that there isn't really room for it in our shrinking apartment fridge, so I usually give up on it. But, with this challenge and the holidays around the corner, I decided to give it another shot and maybe come up with some creative alternatives.


Like Pomegranate Swirl Bread.


Five days.... no, maybe it was six, seven.... eight days of waiting and the business of going to school, and i finally got to making the bread. Only the starter seemed really dry. Ooops. Guess I thought I was wrong to think I could just add the same amount of flour and water each day.


And impatient not to let my pomegranate filling cool before rushing to fill my bread with it.


So, Alas, I had dense bread. But the flavor was pretty good. And now i have more starter, with which I am today trying something completely bizarre; baked sourdough doughnuts. 


Don't give me that look- I just found a baked doughnut recipe... couldn't tell you where because I look at like a thousand recipes a week... and saw Unique Sweets on Cooking Channel (which by the way no one should have to pay extra for), where one fancy baker baked all her doughnuts and used some molecular gastronomy to turn olive oil into a powder to replace powdered sugar on her doughnuts.


Oh how the wheels turn.


Oh yes, stay tuned. Doughnuts are in our future. Sorry, you can't have any, just the recipe. And maybe the recipe for some delicious madelines and pistachio coconut cake I made recently. If you're lucky.


But not now. Right now you get this bread recipe. The French Country Bread that Jessica provided for this month's challenge; that I didn't quite follow (but not on purpose); plus a rough method for pomegranate cinnamon filling.


Fill up before the New Year strikes! It's still Christmas after all, isn't it? I mean it all goes too fast!

French Country Bread
Servings: 1 large loaf plus extra wheat starter for further baking

Wheat Starter - Day 1:
Ingredients
4 1/2 tablespoons (70 ml) (40 gm/1 ½ oz) stoneground breadmaking whole-wheat or graham flour
3 tablespoons (45 ml) water
Total scant ½ cup (115 ml) (3 oz/85 gm)

Directions:
1. In a Tupperware or plastic container, mix the flour and water into a paste.
2. Set the lid on top gently, cover with a plastic bag, to prevent messes in case it grows more than expected!
3. Set somewhere warm (around 86 F if possible). I sometimes put mine on a windowsill near a radiator, but even if it’s not that warm, you’ll still get a starter going – it might just take longer.

Wheat Starter - Day 2:
Ingredients
4 1/2 tablespoons (70 ml) (40 gm/1 ½ oz) stoneground breadmaking whole-wheat or graham flour
3 tablespoons (45 ml) water
scant 1/2 cup (115 ml) (3 oz/85 gm) starter from Day 1
Total scant cup (230 ml) (6 oz/170 gm)

Directions:
1. Stir the flour and water into the mixture from Day 1, cover, and return to its warm place.

Wheat Starter - Day 3:
Ingredients
4 1/2 tablespoons (70 ml) (40 gm/1 ½ oz) stoneground breadmaking whole-wheat or graham flour
4 teaspoons (20 ml) water
scant 1 cup (230 ml) (6 oz/170 gm) starter from Day 2
Total 1⅓ cup (320 ml) (230 gm/8-1/10 oz)

Directions:
1. Stir the flour and water into the mixture from Day 2, cover, and return to its warm place.

Wheat Starter - Day 4:
Ingredients
3/4 cup plus 1½ tablespoons (205 ml) (120 gm/4 ¼ oz) unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup less 4 teaspoons (100 ml) water
1⅓ cup (320 ml) (230 gm/8 oz) starter from Day 3
Total scant 2⅔ cup (625 ml) (440 gm/15½ oz)

Directions:
1. Stir the flour and water into the mixture from Day 3, cover, and return to its warm place. At this point it should be bubbling and smell yeasty. If not, repeat this process for a further day or so until it is!

French Country Bread
Stage 1: Refreshing the leaven
Ingredients
1 cup less 1 tablespoon (225 ml) (160 gm/5 ⅔ oz) wheat Leaven Starter
6 tablespoons less 1 teaspoon (85 ml) (50 gm/1¾ oz) stoneground bread making whole-wheat or graham flour
1 cup plus 2 teaspoons (250 ml) (150 gm/5 ⅓ oz) unbleached all purpose flour
1/2 cup (120 ml) water
Production Leaven Total 2¾ cups plus 4 teaspoons (680 ml) (480 gm /1 lb 1 oz)

Directions:
1. Mix everything into a sloppy dough. It may be fairly stiff at this stage. Cover and set aside for 4 hours, until bubbling and expanded slightly.

Pomegranate Filling

(make at some point before shaping your dough so that it has time to cool/set)

1. In a saucepan on medium heat, bring a cup or so of pomegranate juice to a boil. Reduce heat slightly and allow juice to reduce by half. Let cool to room temperature.

Add about 1 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon and enough brown sugar to make a thick paste. Set aside to allow the sugar to absorb the pomegranate juice.

French Country Bread
Stage 2: Making the final dough
Ingredients
3/4 cup less 1 teaspoon (175 ml) (100 gm/3 ½ oz) stoneground breadmaking whole-wheat or graham flour, plus more for dusting
2 cups plus 2 tablespoons (510 ml) (300gm/10 ½ oz) unbleached all-purpose flour
1¼ teaspoons (7½ ml) (7 gm/¼ oz) sea salt or ⅔ teaspoon (3⅓ ml) (3 gm/⅛ oz) table salt
1 ¼ cups (300 ml) water
1 ¾ cups (425 ml) (300 gm/10 ½ oz) production leaven – this should leave some (1 cup) for your next loaf.
Total 6 cups less 2 tablespoons 1415 ml (1007 gm/35 ½ oz/2 lb 3½ oz)

Directions:

1. Mix the dough with all the ingredients except the production leaven. It will be a soft dough.
2. Knead on an UNFLOURED (I had to use some flour becuase it was far too sticky to knead) surface for about 8-10 minutes, getting the tips of your fingers wet if you need to. You can use dough scrapers to stretch and fold the dough at this stage, or air knead if you prefer. Basically, you want to stretch the dough and fold it over itself repeatedly until you have a smoother, more elastic dough.
See my demonstration here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqS3raEGdwk
3. Smooth your dough into a circle, then scoop your production leaven into the centre. You want to fold the edges of the dough up to incorporate the leaven, but this might be a messy process. Knead for a couple minutes until the leaven is fully incorporated in the dough. See my demonstration here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPO97R4iO4U
4. Spread some water on a clean bit of your work surface and lay the dough on top. Cover with an upturned bowl, lining the rim of the bowl with a bit of water. Leave for an hour, so that the gluten can develop and the yeasts can begin to aerate the dough.
5. Once your dough has rested, you can begin to stretch and fold it. First, spread your pomegranate filling in a thin layer all over the surface of the slightly-flattened sough, being careful not to go too close to the edges.Using wet hands and a dough scraper, stretch the dough away from you as far as you can without breaking it and fold it back in on itself. Repeat this in each direction, to the right, towards you, and to the left. This will help create a more ‘vertical’ dough, ready for proofing. See my demonstration here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDoJRCMfclE
6. Heavily flour a banneton/proofing basket with whole wheat flour and rest your dough, seam side up, in the basket. Put the basket in a large plastic bag, inflate it, and seal it. Set aside somewhere warm for 3-5 hours, or until it has expanded a fair bit. It is ready to bake when the dough responds to a gently poke by slowly pressing back to shape.
7. Preheat the oven to hot 425°F/220°C/gas mark 7. Line a baking sheet with parchment, then carefully invert the dough onto the sheet. I like to put the baking sheet on top of the basket, then gently flip it over so as to disturb the dough as little as possible. Make 2-3 cuts on top of the loaf and bake for 40-50 minutes, reducing the temperature to moderately hot 400°F/200°C/gas mark 6 after 10 minutes.
8. Cool on a cooling rack.

Oh, and one final note: I baked mine in a dutch oven. I preheated in a 500 degree own, lowered the temp to 435, then put my proofed bread in it, covered the pan, and baked it as directed. The pot traps steam and helps the bread rise better :)