A Fermented Holiday Season starts now

It's that time of year again, time to start thinking about Holiday presents.  This year I've decided that all the adults are getting homemade gifts, mostly food.

It all started with the most recent batch of chickpea miso - best batch so far! - and I thought, this is the type of miso I would be proud to serve my friends (as opposed to my learning batches of miso which were a little bit...um... taste like practice).  If the miso tastes this good, I wonder what other yummy treats I can make.

So here's a list (because these particular friends don't read this blog) of some of the delicious fermented foods I hope to have ready in time for Christmas.

Sweet Miso takes about one month to ferment, but it can be as fast as 3 weeks if I increase the ratio of koji rice to other ingredients.  I have one batch of Chunky Chickpea Miso ready, and plan to put up a batch of Black Turtle and Adzuke Bean with Barley Miso later today.




Kimchi!  Kimchi is awesome in so many ways.  For starters, it is by far the best way to clean out the crisper drawer in the fridge.  You can put (almost) anything in kimchi.  In this case, I used half a daikon, two su choi cabbages, chilis, excessive amounts of ginger sliced thin, Cauliflower, carrots, and anything else vegi related that needed eating up.  Kimchi takes about one week to ferment.



Cultured Butter is easy to make in advance and keeps for ages.  I'll probably start making this a week or two before the Holiday dinner.  Takes one day to culture the cream and the next day to churn it = two days.



With the leftover buttermilk from churning butter, I will bake some bread.  Sourdough Bread loves buttermilk.  With the added dairy sugars the bread will often rise to be lofty and soft, as opposed to the more dense country loaf I make for every-day purposes.  Takes two days to make a great loaf of sourdough, but can be done in one.

Speaking about dairy. my dream is to eventually make my own hard cheese.  Wouldn't it be lovely to give the gift of Cheese?  Even a soft farmhouse style cheese mixed with dry herbs dressed in a beautiful jar or clay pot would be a good addition to a gift basket.  Soft cheese takes a couple of hours, a hard cheese on the other hand can take years.


Of course, you could always spice up your relationship with some hot sauce.  Fermented hot sauce takes about one week, or this one which is ready in two days.


Last but not least, my personal all time holiday favourite:

Cranberry Mead!

The biggest advantages of fermented vs the baked gift, are that fermented gifts last longer, are generally more affordable to make and are a refreshing change from over-indulgence.  They are also an excellent way to use up the last of the harvest.

Mystery Squash Becomes Pumpkin Bread Recipe - aka, Mystery Squash Bread Recipe

What to do when one's garden has become invaded by squash?  Make squash bread of course.  

There are these three plants, began innocently enough, tiny tender things, needing coaxing and care to begin their life in the soil.  I created pots from old newspaper and filled them with finely sifted soil.  Placed one seed carefully inside each pot and watered it with dedication.  When the moment was right, I dug a hole in the garden, not too big, but not too small, and pressed the tender shoot, pot and all, into the soil.  Covered it with a cold frame made from old windows, and with some words of encouragement, left it to fend for itself.

Well, perhaps I gave it a little too much encouragement.  Each plant sent out, at first one long searching vine, then another and another, until each one had produced over a dozen vines, climbing over fence and pea plant with equal enthusiasm.  June was scary!  The vines would grow over a foot a day, each morning I had to hack my way past over-enthusiastic squash, just to get into the garden.  Finally the vine growth seems to have reached the limit at just shy of 25 feet, the bright yellow blossoms are gone, replaced with splendid orange squash.

you can get an idea of how large these squash are

week old gosling named Chesnut

I'm guessing they are pumpkins.

After bumming around the internet for a few hours, I finally came across a squash recipe I liked: Savory Pumpkin Rosemary Bread.  The flavours in this recipe look really good, so I thought it would translate nicely to sourdough.  I started roasting the squash at midnight - the only time of day when the kitchen is cool enough to cook - and made pumpkin mush the next morning.  

Disaster struck when I got my sourdough starter out of the fridge - BLACK MOLD.  

I'm not hugely squeamish with mold, but when black mold happens I won't touch it.  Even if it isn't real black mold, just black colour mold, it's just not worth the risk.  

So sadness, my sourdough starters are all dead.

I blame myself, because I know during the summer the water in the well kills starters.  Something from one of our neighbours uphill from us seeps into the water table and devastates my cultures.  I suspect it's the time of year when swimming pools are emptied and cleaned.  From June through August, I always try to boil my water before using it in any culture that relies on bacteria.  But this year, we had a new filtration system installed, so I thought I could be lazy... sniffle... oh well.

Good thing I know how to make more starter, but that takes time and doesn't help me with all this squash/pumpkin mush.  So commercial yeast it is.

The recipe linked above looks fantastic, but relies heavily on mechanical devices to mix the dough.  I changed an ingredient or two, the method, the order of adding, timing, and even some of the ratios, so I'm going to post my version of this recipe for those of you who don't have a standing mixer or who enjoy kneading by hand.

mmm, pumpkin bread
sorry about the lighting, late night photos are not my strong suit

Mystery Squash Bread

The night before

at least 1 lb squash or pumpkin (without seeds)

olive oil

flour, whole wheat if you have it

water

yeast

• Cut up the squash into 3 inch chunks - about that size, don't be fussy unless you want to.  Rub with oil and place on a roasting tray in the oven.  350F for about 30 min, or until it's mushy.  Remove from oven, and cover with a clean towel.  Leave on the counter overnight or until cool enough to handle.
• In a small dish, make a poolish or biga by combining 2 cups of flour with a pinch of yeast and enough water to make it into a thin batter.  Cover with a cloth and leave on the counter overnight.  

Baking day

The roasted squash (or 2 cups canned squash mush)

The poolish from the night before

1 cup warm water

2 Tbs instant yeast

small drizzle honey

1Tbs sea salt

flour (I used all purpose, but next time I'll use a mix of 1 cup whole grain and the rest all purpose)

about 1 tsp fresh rosemary finely chopped, or 1/2 tsp dry

olive oil

• Get your big bread bowl out and in it, combine the honey, yeast and warm water.
• Scrape the squash off it's skin directly into a blender or blitzer.  And blend/blits until mush.  Alternately you could just mush it up with a fork.  I don't think there are any rules as to how lumpy or smooth your squash mush is.  
• The yeast should be starting to work by now.  If not, leave it 5 min before continuing.
• Next add the squash mush, poolish, and salt to the yeast water.  Mix together well.  
• Add about one cup of flour (the whole grain if you are using it) to the mix, and mix.
• Mix in about 1 handful of flour at a time, until you get the traditional shaggy mess that bread recipes always talk about.
• Put your shaggy mess on a well floured countertop and take the bowl immediately to the sink and wash it.  Some people think this is an optional step and we should just get another bowl out of the cupboard, but there are good reasons for putting the effort in.  One, it lets your dough rest.  Two, the bowl is easier to clean now than later.  And three, you don't have to hear the person who does the dishes complain about how they love your bread but hate the mess it makes.
• Dry the bowl with a clean cotton or linen towel (keep the towel to one side for covering the dough later) and pour a generous glug of olive oil in the now dry bowl.
• Go back to your shaggy mess and knead it till it's smooth and elastic - about 2 to 10 min.  Shape your dough into a ball like shape, put it upside down in the bowl and get the top good and oily.  flip it right way up, and cover it with your cloth.  Leave it to rise until it's about double in size.  Usually under an hour. 
• If this was sourdough bread, I would shape the loaves immediately after kneading it to give it a more rustic texture with probable air pockets.  But since we are using commercial yeast, I feel the taste isn't very good with a single rise.  Best to do the double rise thing even if it makes a softer bread.
• Also, a lot of people recommend a damp cloth - I don't quite understand why they think this is a good idea.  It's such a short rise time, and if you were generous with the oil, then the slight dampness left on the towel from drying the bow is plenty.  The dough isn't going to dry out in an hour.  Besides, as the dampness on the cloth evaporates, it cools the dough.  This isn't what you really want when working with commercial yeast.  Long rise sourdoughs on the other hand... they love a cooler clime.  
• But you know, it's your bread, do what you like.  I'm not going to come to your house and yell at you if you don't do things the way I say.  
• When it's risen, punch it down.  Divide into two and shape into loaves.  Whatever shape you like - round with a cross on top, loaf pan, braided, pumpkin shape... whatever floats your boat.  Score the top of the loaf (if you like) to make it rise more evenly.  Cover again with the cloth and leave till double in size (about 20 min).  I do round loaves traditionally, so if you are doing something different you may need to adjust your cooking time.
• I cooked mine at 425F for 45 min.  Next time I'll cook at 400F for about an hour as I didn't like the crust at the higher temp.  It's ready if it sounds hollow when knocked.  
• Eat anytime after 10 min, or leave to cool 12 hours before putting in plastic bag.

Affordable?  If you wait till squash season, people will almost pay you to take their excess squash off their hands.  I imagine you could use just about any winter squash - maybe even summer squash, but probably have to either grate it or roast it differently.  You can make loads of pumpkin mush and freeze it in 2 cup servings.  You can use more or less pumpkin according to your tastes.  I think it would be really good with leftover lentils or other pulses.  In fact, forget about roasting squash specifically for this bread, use leftover squash from a family feast.

There's a decent nutritional value to this - but I'm going to hesitate pricing out the ingredients as I understand there is yet another bad harvest year for wheat (what's that? 6 years in a row now?) so expect the price to go up again this winter.  8 years ago a huge bag of flour was regularly on sale for $2.40, now it's never lower than $14.  You know things are bad when locally grown organic wheat berries are now cheaper than commercial flour.  

At the time of writing, this recipe is affordable.. but who knows what tomorrow will bring.

Vegi or fruit, either way squash is probably a healthy thing.  This is a good way to trick yourself into eating your veg - something I have to do often - by making a slightly sweet flavour bread that goes amazingly well with hummus or goat cheese.

How to make this Vegan Friendly: Replace the honey with a pinch of sugar.

I think this qualifies as a Transitional Food, not just because I'm cutting down on my oil dependence by using locally grown wheat, but also because pumpkins and squashes in general are one of the easiest things to grow.  Get the timing right, give them lots of water, and even the brownest of thumbs can look like they know what they are doing.    When we get back to a stage in society where the Victory Garden replaces the lawn, you need to realize that there are going to be a lot of squash.  Better learn how to cook it.

Sourdough Nettle Rye Bread recipe - or let's get Medieval on Your Nettles

Yesterday I made an adaptation of an adaptation of a medieval recipe for Nettle Bread.  It's exceedingly delicious, with a sweet and moist rye bread crumb.  I like it sliced thin, lightly toasted and smothered in butter (homemade is best) and a few drops of honey on top.

Rustic nettle bread

We have the perfect growing place for stinging nettles, it's moist year round, it's acidic, it's downhill from the neighbour's manure pile so the soil is overloaded with nutrients.  There is not much else that will grow there, but the nettles thrive.  So I harvested a large basket full of just the leaves.  My nettles are getting a bit old and scraggly, but if you have young nettles, you can use the stem as well.

Although I made a huge batch of nettle bread this time, I'm going to scale down the recipe for you.  Those of you without constant access to nettles might have to wait till they are available in the shops in the spring... Far too expensive for something available free in the wild, but when that's all you have... well, you make do.  The bunches sold in the store are about a cup worth - but you can use more or less depending on what you have on hand.

blanching nettles
(in the water I used for brewing small ale later that day.
This should be interesting)

The recipe I used for inspiration comes from the beautiful book The Medieval Kitchen, a social history with recipes by Hannele Klemettila (the final 'a' in the name has those two little dots on top).  The author uses modern yeast and caraway seeds.  I hate caraway seeds, possibly more than I hate mushrooms.  They disgust me.

Last year I used Klemettila's recipe and it's quite nice (without the caraway seeds).  It's written in a way that assumes you are very comfortable baking bread and the recipe uses modern ingredients and methods that were not available in the middle ages.  Like most of the book, it is more an attempt to introduce the modern pallet to some of the medieval flavour combinations.  Combine that with the layout and gorgeous pictures, I think it's a good introduction to medieval food.

For me, it's not enough.  In the middle ages a person couldn't just drive down to the supermarket and pick up a packet of yeast.  They had to capture their own yeast, very much like we do with sourdough today.  In fact, in some parts of Europe, it was exactly like we do with sourdough today.  To keep the bread as medieval as possible, I used sourdough instead of modern yeast.

Because the nettles have so many natural sugars, I figured a heavy rye bread would do the trick.  And I was right.

This bread uses a sponge so start it the evening before you plan to bake.  It is also a bit different than many bread recipes in that I only rise it once.  It's a trick you can use for sourdough when you can't guarantee you'll be available to shape the loaves for the second rise.  This creates a more rustic texture, sometimes creating those big air pockets in the loaf.  I kind of like it.

Stinging Nettle Sourdough Rye Bread

About 1 cup of fresh nettles - or a lot more if you have it
1 tsp salt
Sourdough starter
Rye flour
Wheat flour
1/2 tsp Whole fennel seeds
1 tsp honey (optional - makes it no longer vegan)
water

The night before baking day, we make a sponge:

• Put 2 Tbs sourdough starter (from the fridge or already active is fine), 1/2 cup water, and enough rye flour to make a thin batter.  Cover with a cotton or linen towel and leave on the counter overnight.  This is called the sponge.
• Feed your starter as per normal - I'm assuming you are already slightly familiar with sourdough.

Now it's baking day, let's get's medieval on your nettles

• Toast the fennel seeds in a dry fry pan until they smell amazing then put to one side to cool.  While it's toasting, you will want to shake or stir the seeds quite frequently to ensure nothing burns.  When cool enough to handle, coarsely grind it with a mortar and pestle or a spice mill.  
• Bring a fairly large pot of water to the boil and dunk the nettles in the boiling water for about 3 minutes.  Take the nettles out and put them in a bowl, add about a cup of cold water to the nettles.  When the nettles are cool enough to touch comfortably, take them out of the cold water and strain them - keep the cold water, we're about to use it.  Let's call it nettle rinse water.
• Combine the nettle rinse water, sponge, 1 tsp salt, toasted fennel seeds, a handful of flour, and a handful of rye flour.  If you are using honey, add it now too.  Mix it up well and put it to one side.  
• Take the nettles that have drained, chop them up as finely or as coarsely as you like.  The cooking should have neutralized the sting.  Add this to the flour/sponge/fennel/water mix above.  Stir vigorously, almost whisking it in as this will help to activate the gluten in the flour and ensure the nettles are well incorporated into the dough.
• Add another three or four handfuls of rye flour, or about 1/2 a cup, and mix well.
• Add regular flour by the handfuls, mixing between each addition, until you have a shaggy mess.
• Put the shaggy mess onto a well floured board or counter, kneed it until no longer shaggy, but instead a lovely smooth.  
• Shape into one or two loaves, then put on a baking sheet.  Cover with a towel and leave it alone until double in size.  This may take an hour or it might take 8, depends on your yeast and many other factors... most of which are beyond your control.  A lot of people like to leave it somewhere warm, which is okay, but for me doesn't make as nice a texture or as long keeping loaf.  Just put it somewhere where it isn't in a draft.  
• When it's double in size, preheat the oven to 400 F.
• While the oven is heating up, use a very sharp knife to carefully cut some lines in the top of the bread.
• Bake at 400 for 35 min for the small loaves, or 40 min for one large loaf.  Bread is done when it sounds hollow when you tap it on the bottom.
• Take out of the oven, wrap the loaves in a cotton or linen towel and leave at least 12 hours to cool before storing in plastic.  Or if you are hungry now, wait at least 10 min before cutting into it.

So beautiful, ready to rise

Affordable: Yes, if you're harvesting your own nettles and not paying grocery store prices.  The nettles add a lot of nutrition and a little bit of bulk to the bread which is pretty awesome.  Nettles are very healthy - just google stinging nettles to find out all the good things they do.

If you omit the honey, this is a vegan friendly bread.

Tradition and transition?  It seems to have been quite common in medieval times, but the tradition has died out.  As a Transition bread, however, this is going to be a good recipe to keep around.  A dense nettle bread is very common during starvation times, like during World War 2 for example.  Usually wheat flour is one of the first things to be rationed, so breads were made with whatever grains were on hand, and often augmented with nettles and other nutritional weeds that are usually ignored in times of plenty.

We would be foolish to think that we won't ever have a starvation time again in The West, but for now, it's actually quite a yummy bread, the nettles adding  a little bit of tang, sweetness, and even help prevent the bread from going moldy.

nettle toast and honey, delicious.

2 recipes: hot cross buns and sourdough hot cross buns

Earlier I talked about how to convert a regular yeast bread recipe to a sourdough recipe.  Although the theory is pretty straight forward, I've always felt rather intimidated by the idea of trying it.

Finally, my desire for sourdough hot cross buns overcame my fear of failure, and I set to work converting an old favourite recipe from commercial yeast to sourdough.

This first recipe come from one of my all time favourite bread (and cake books) Homemade Bread by the Food Editors of Farm Journal   It's out of print now, but if you ever see a copy at a second hand bookshop or yard sale, snatch it up.  Not only is it full of yummy bread recipes, the decidedly sexiest attitude is always good for a laugh.

Hot Cross Buns

Easter Buns with frosting crosses - traditionally served on Good Friday

1/4 cup milk
1/3 cup sugar
2/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup shortening
2 pkgs. active dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water
3 eggs
4 cups sifted all-purpose flour (about)
3/4 cup currants
1 egg white
1 tsp cold water
white frosting (recipe below)

• Scald milk,add sugar, salt and shortening; cool to luke warm.
• Sprinkle yeast on warm water; stir to dissolve.
• Add eggs, yeast and 1c flour to milk mixture; beat with electric mixer at medium speed about 2 minutes, occasionally scraping the bowl.  Stir in currants and enough remaining flour, a little at a time, to make a soft dough that is easy to handle.  Beat well.  Place in lightly greased bowl' turn dough over to grease top.  Cover and let rise until doubled, about 1.5 hours.  Punch down.  Turn onto lightly floured board.
• Roll or pat to 1/2" thickness.  Cut in rounds with 2.5" bisket cutter; shape cutouts in buns.  Place about 1.5" apart on greased baking sheets.  Cover and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.
• With a very sharp knife, cut a shallow cross on top of each bun.  Brush tops wit unbeaten egg white mixed with cold water.
• Bake in moderate oven (375F) 15 minutes  or until golden brown.  Cool on wire racks about 5 minutes.  Then with tip of knife or teaspoon, fill in the crosses on buns with White Frosting.  Best served Warm.  Makes about 18 buns.

White Frosting: Combine 1c. sifted confectioners sugar, 1/2 tsp vanilla and 2 Tbs hot water.  Mix until smooth.

Now, the above recipe makes a decent hot cross bun, but I do usually add spices and candied peal to it.  I also find it a wee bit sweet for my taste, particularly the frosting.

This next recipe takes a long time to make, but it's so worth it.  I recommend making the sponge in the morning, the first part of the dough late in the evening, leaving it to rise overnight, then shape and do the second rise in the morning.  The buns should be ready for late afternoon on the second day.  Doing the second rise overnight ends up drying out the surface of the buns before they go in the oven which makes them hard to cut.

It's also very difficult to photograph these hot cross buns.  By the time I have the props and camera ready, the buns are all eaten.  Three days of baking from dawn till 3am the next day and I finally learned to hide the buns while they cool so that they didn't get snatched up.  (I did a lot of test batches and testing, so I'm confident they are fantastic).

Sourdough Hot Cross Buns

A word about Sponge.  Although the word sponge can mean different things in various parts of the word, I use it here to mean a fairly active runny batter like substance made of sourdough starter, flour and water.  Make the sponge at least 4 hours before you plan to begin the bread.  I usually make mine the night before.  Mix at least 1/4 cup flour, 1/4 cup water (or more) and at least 1/8th cup sourdough starter.  Mix them well to make a runny batter, and leave in a warm corrner of the kitchen, covered with a cotton or linen towel.  After a few hours, depending on your temperature, the weather, whatnot, it should be bubbling.  You know the yeast is active in it.  If you leave it more than 24 hours, you need to feed it again.

1/4 cup sourdough sponge
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup honey/maple syrup/or other sweet liquid (I use the juice the fruit is candied in if there is any left over)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter/lard/or other fat (butter is best)
3 eggs
less than 4 cups flour (your choice but I recommend the first cup be all purpose or bread flour).
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup candied ginger (optional)
1/2 cup other dried or candied fruit or peal
pinch each nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves

• Scald milk, add honey, salt, butter.  cool to luke warm.
• In a big bowl, add eggs, sponge, 1 cup of flour, and milk mixture.  Mix a lot.  What you are trying to do here is to blend everything and activate the gluten in the flour.  It takes about 5 to 6 minutes to mix this by hand.  I do it in 2 min sessions, with a min or two rest in between.  Wooden spoon is my favourite tool for this.  Alternately, you could mix in electric mixer for 2 min.
• Add spices, and fruit, mix some more.
• Mix in the flour a little at a time until a soft dough forms.  Should be barely firm enough for you to handle.
• Place in a lightly greased bowl, grease the top of the dough, and cover with a linen or cotton towel.  Rise until double in size.  Even with a very active sourdough starter, THIS TAKES A LONG TIME SO YOU MIGHT WANT TO DO THIS OVERNIGHT.
• Punch down and break off egg sized balls of dough.  Form into bun shapes and place in a lightly greased tray or baking pan.  Cover and raise till double in size.
• Carefully cut the cross in the top with a VERY sharp knife.  Optional:brush with egg white mixed with 1 Tbs of cold water.
• Bake at 375 degrees F for 20 to 25 min.  

I'm not bothering with the egg wash (I don't like egg whites much, especially with bread) or frosting, but feel free to do it if you like.

Ideas for fruit to put in them: dried currents, dried cherries  dried raisins  dried peal, freshly grated organic citrus peal, candied peal, dried pineapples, dried anything... make sure you pit and chop up anything bigger than a raison.  My favourite is to get the chunky runny marmalade they have in Europe and strain off the juices (use this instead of honey) and the chunks of orange as the fruit for the bun.

Healthy: well, um.  I don't recommend  eating as many as I have this week.  But hey it's only once a year and when compared with commercial made hot cross buns full of highly processed ingredients and florescent coloured lemon peal like substance, YES they are much healthier.

Affordable:  I have no idea.  I don't even want to price these out, they are so delicious.  They do however help use up the left over dried fruit you have in the back of the cupboard... that's got to count for something I suppose.

These are NOT suitable to serve to your Vegan Friends because of the egg, honey, butter, &c.  See this vegan friendly recipe for hot cross buns.

Allergies: This is fairly easy to modify for allergies.  I don't recomend cutting down on eggs and butter though, it is what makes the dish.  If these are the things you are allergic to, then please make the vegain version I just linked to in the last paragraph.

 

Converting a normal bread recipe to sourdough

First stage, to write out a recipe based on the
original hot cross bun recipe, yet incorporates sourdough

I almost never have commercial yeast in my house any more  I much prefer to make and eat bread with sourdough.  This is mostly because I'm lazy.

Lazy because commercial yeast acts really quickly and you have precise timing for each stage - sourdough is less fussy and gives you an hour or two leeway.

I also really enjoy the flavour of sourdough.  I can make it strongly sour (making a stiff sponge) or mild and lofty (a runny sponge started several days before baking day).  With sourdough you are the master.


Been hankering for a sourdough hot cross bun recipe but I haven't found one yet that captures that certain I don't know what, I remember from my youth.   The Vegan Sourdough Hot Cross Bun Recipe I posted earlier is very good, but I'm looking for something a bit more old fashioned and full of eggs.  So instead of working from a sourdough recipe, I decided to start with a recipe I know and love, and transform it into sourdough.

highly amusing bread book

The recipe I'm starting with is from my most favourite bread book ever:  Homemade Bread by the Food Editors of Farm Journal.  Now, I don't recommend this book to everyone.  In fact, I think most people would be offended by it's attitude towards woman.  But I find it a funny attempt to counter the feminist movement.  I laugh at descriptions how on election night, a woman should be in the kitchen baking Election Night Bread (be careful how you spell that folks) to serve to her husband and his friends from work as they gather around the television watching the polls.

I have Baking with Sourdough
on my kindle

The other reference I'm using to convert this modern recipe is Baking with Sourdough (Storey's Country Wisdom Bulletin) by Sara Pitzer.  It's an excellent reference for beginners and experienced sourdough lovers alike. I find myself referencing it time and again.  I highly recommend it.

Sara writes:

"To adapt a yeast recipe, begin with a small amount of starter, about 1/4 cup... Mix the starter with some flour and some of the liquid from the basic recipe you want to convert.  Figure that 1/4 cup starter has replaced about 1/4 cup flour and slightly less than 1/4 cup liquid in the recipe.... "  She goes on to describes the method of making a sponge, mixing some of the flour and liquid with the starter and letting it sit 4 (for mild flavour) to 24 (for strong flavour) hours.  Then proceed with the regular process, being careful to get the right texture of the dough (it helps to have made the recipe using commercial yeast before hand so you know what the desired texture and consistency of the dough should be) and allowing for longer time rising the dough.  Sara finishes up saying, "If it 'thinks good,' try it." which is exactly what I plan to do.


A few things to note (and Sara's book goes into more detail about this) is that you can control how strong a flavour your sourdough starter gives your bread.  You are not at the mercy of your starter.

One way to control the flavour, making it more mild, is to create a runny sponge a few days before hand.  I usually keep my starter extra-thick and then create a runny sponge from it (using by volume 1 part starter, 1 part flour, and 2 parts water).  Feed it at least once a day for at least 2 days, twice for a more mild texture, don't worry if you make too much, the extra sponge can become sourdough crackers or bread.  By having the sponge runny and at room temperature for a few days before baking day helps make the bread more lofty and less sour.


UPDATE: I just tried my buns and they are officially delicious.  Be posting both recipes very soon.



     

Bring your own toppings

5 year old (ops, my mistake, 6 years old in a few weeks)
and 2 year old enjoying vegetable rich pizza

Homemade pizza can be a delicious and healthy treat for kids.

We had a top your own pizza party for lunch the other day.  It went really well and I can't wait to do it again.


I had the grups (grown-ups) bring their own toppings and cheese,  I provided the crust and the sauce.

I'm very impressed by how many more vegetables parents feed their kids these days, compared from when I was younger.  Broccoli, spinach, mushroom, and ham were the toppings chosen by H (the oldest who topped her own pizza).  She even shared a bite with her little sister.

First time the little ones are eating pizza so it took a bit of getting use to.  But once they figured it out, boy did it go down fast.


For this I used my regular sourdough bread dough, raised once and put in the fridge for at least 24 hours.  Then, the day of the party, get the dough out a few hours before hand to wake up.  Set someone to grate the cheese, another person to set up the topping station, and a third person to fry the bacon while you break off egg sized balls of dough and roll them out into roughly pizza shaped flat pieces.

By now the topping station should be finished and that person can be in charge of putting the crust on the pan, and saucing it up.  The cheese person is done now, so she or he can guide the kids as they top their own pizza.

individually topped pizzas, ready to pop in the oven

Bottom shelf of the oven at 425F, for roughly 14 min and presto pizza!  Don't put more than one layer of pizzas in the oven at a time, it makes the crusts go soggy and not cook right.

mmmm, yummy.

Very allergy friendly: this is great because you can make the crust from scratch and each person can bring toppings they like.  That way you don't have to fret about accommodating specific food needs.  You can even make yeast free or gluten free crusts if need be.  

Healthy? Oh yes!  Did you see all those vegetables.  I've noticed that if the grown up isn't scared of eating a little veg, neither is the kid.  It's a fairly balanced meal, so long as you don't over do the cheese and meat.  Make the crust thinner for diabetics and people trying to loose weight.  

Affordable cooking:  This is a great twist on the pot luck where everyone shares the labour and the price of ingredients   It probably costs a total of $1 to $4 per personal pizza, which to be honest, is more than I like to spend per person usually, but it's well worth it when you see how much the kids are enjoying the process of making their own pizza.

This can be made Vegan Friendly, but it takes a bit of effort.  If you are like me and like to cook for your vegan friends, then I recommend running the recipe for the crust by your vegan friend first.  There are vegan cheese out there, but chances are your friend has a particular brand they like and knows which ones melt well and which ones turn to glue when heated.  Get him or her to bring their own toppings and treat it like you would a strong allergy (their toppings go separate and don't get mixed with the non-vegan food).  If they are strict vegans, then keeping their pizza on a separate tray to the meat pizzas, is a must.  Cook theirs first so that they don't accidentally get any meat or cheese on the pizza from the cutting knife.  Just little things like this make a huge difference and help your friend feel comfortable.  

Vegan Sourdough Hot Cross Bun Recipe

Happy Springtime everyone

Hot cross buns, my most favourite bread.

Recently I discovered this very delicious looking recipe for vegan friendly, sourdough hot cross buns.  SAChoirgirl gave me permission to share it with you here.

I haven't tried this myself yet, but it looks like it's going to be yummy.  It's got all the right stuff in it.  If you do end up trying it, please let me know how it turns out.


Here's what SAChoirgirl has to say:

South African hot crossed buns are different from American ones. Typically they are more spicy, darker, and less sweet. 

I adapted this recipe to suit my taste, so it might not be quite what you are looking for, but it is not hard to adapt, and I think if you want something sweeter and lighter it would mean using all unbleached white bread flour, and perhaps a sweeter glaze. 

The diastatic malt powder is in there more as a dough enhancer, but it does also add a little sweetness. Bonus: I use fresh orange zest, and candied peel is optional, so you could use what you have available.

1 cup mature sourdough fed no more than 12 hours earlier 
1 cup water 
1 rooibos or English breakfast tea bag (optional) 
2 tablespoons coconut oil (you could substitute any neutral vegetable oil, if you prefer) 
1 cup mixed raisins and saltanas (golden raising). candied peel optional. 
1/2 cup almond meal (optional. The buns are lighter without it) 
1/2 cup flax meal (optional. buns are also lighter without it. I use golden flax, and add it for texture and fiber) 
1/4 cup sugar 
1 teaspoon salt 
340 g unbleached bread flour 
160 g white whole wheat or traditional whole wheat flour (can be substituted with unbleached bread flour) 
1 teaspoon diastatic malt powder 
1 Tablespoon grated orange zest 
1 Tablespoon cinnamon 
1 teaspoon ginger 
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg 
1/2 teaspoon allspice 
(all spices are optional, and can be substituted or left out to suit your taste)

Method: 

• Heat the water to 180 degrees f (hot but not boiling. Exact temperature is not critical) and add teabag and raisins. Allow to cool until tepid. Strain, saving the water, discarding the tea bag, and setting the raising aside. 
• Mix together the sourdough culture, the soaking water, sugar, and salt. 
• Add the flax meal and almond meal if using, and the diastatic malt powder, and allow to rest for 15 minutes. 
• Add the spices, and then begin mixing in the flour a cup or so at a time, until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl (I start with the white whole wheat flour, and then add the white flour, adjusting the amount based on the response of the dough and my current kitchen conditions. In general you want a slightly drier dough than the typical artisan sourdough, because the sugar tends to draw moisture and make the dough more sticky overnight. Avoid a very dry or stiff dough, though, as it won’t rise as easily). 
• Kneed until the gluten is well developed (roughly 25 minutes on medium speed in a mixer. Hand kneeding sometimes goes faster). 
• Put the dough in the middle of your work surface and let it rest for 15 minutes (I don’t use a floured surface at this point, because I don’t want to incorporate more flour. I use a rolling mat intended for making pie crusts. You could also use a vinyl table cloth or a stone or granite work surface, if it isn’t too rough). If the dough flattens noticeably, incorporate additional flour, and rest again. 
• Once the dough holds its shape for 15 minutes, flatten it into a rough rectangle, and sprinkle 1/3 of the raisins and orange zest over the surface. Fold the dough in thirds (sometimes called a “letter fold”) and flatten again. Repeat with the remaining fruit and zest. Flatten and fold once more without incorporating anything. Then flatten again and pull the corners of the dough towards the center, shaping a tight ball. Seal the seam (dampen your fingers if necessary), turn the ball over, and tighten the outside surface by tucking it under and rolling the ball around. This is exactly light shaping a boule, and will help the dough rise. Don’t worry if some raising poke out, but try to avoid breaking the surface tension if possible. A
• llow the dough to rise overnight or 8-12 hours. 

• The next day make a think paste of flour and water, and fill a piping bag with a round nozzle. tip the dough onto your work surface and allow to rest for 15 minutes. If it spreads out too much, kneed in more flour. 
• Divide into 12 and shape buns. 
• Pipe a cross over the surface of each and allow to rise for 2-4 hours, or until puffy.
•  Glaze with topping of your choice (egg if you don’t want it sweet, sugar and water or strained and diluted apricot jam if you prefer it sweet) and bake at 375 F until golden and cooked through (20-35 minutes). 
• Wrap in a towel to cool, and if using a sweet glaze, reglaze once only slightly warm.

Recipe: Simple Sourdough Crackers (including a blue cheese sourdough cracker recipe)

Once you have a sourdough starter, it's very easy to have too much sourdough starter.  It is for that reason that I hunted high and low for a simple, affordable, and healthy sourdough cracker recipe.

If you don't have a sourdough starter already, you could get some from a friend, or start your own.  I keep a rye starter going in my kitchen but you can use whatever type you like.

To me, these crackers have a distinctly sour taste, which is quite pleasant  but rather different than anything you would buy in a store.

The basic cracker recipe is Vegan Friendly when made with olive oil, however the blue cheese version of this cracker is not.  If you are cooking for your vegan friend you need to leave off the butter (both steps) and reach for the olive oil instead.

Not necessary, but it really does go great with wine.

Simple Soudough Crackers

1/2 cup sourdough starter or sponge
about 1/2 cup flour plus more for dusting
2Tbs olive oil (for the vegan version) or better still melted butter (not-vegan)
pinch salt
more olive oil or butter for brushing
a bit more salt for sprinkling on top

Please note if you keep an excessively stiff starter like I do (I'm talking can stand a spoon in it one evening and it will still be exactly where you left it the next morning - kind of stiff), you may need to add 1/8th cup water to the mix.

You can start with the sourdough starter at room temp (best) or even at fridge temp (takes longer to 'age')

• Combine starter, (optional water, see note above), salt, flour and oil (or butter), to make a very stiff dough.  Kneed till smooth and elastic.
• Cover and set aside at least 1/2 an hour at room temp, although the longer the better.  I usually leave it for 2 hours at room temp before moving on to the next step.  Although over night in the fridge will also work.  I've had times when I was interrupted half way through making these, banged the remaining dough in the fridge for 3 days, then made the crackers - the result was a bit more sour than usual, but still quite yummy.
• This ageing the dough is an important step for melding the sourdough flavour and it also helps to break down elements in the wheat that can be hard to digest.
• Roll out the dough very thin on a lightly floured surface.  The thinner the more crisp the crackers will be.  Use cookie cutters or a sharp knife to cut the dough into desired shapes.  In my case I like long strips, about 1/2 an inch wide.  Be creative but not fussy.  Rustic is the name of the game.
• Place on a baking tray and brush the oil or butter on top.  Sprinkle VERY lightly with salt.
• In the oven at 350F for about 10 min.  But keep an eye on them, they could be ready in as little as 5 min if you made small thin crackers, and as long as 20 min if you made thick, large crackers.
• When done, take off the rack and cool before eating.

Sourdough Cracker Verriations on the Basic Recipe

Blue cheese

about 2 Tbs blue cheese crumbled and at room temperature

• When you get to the part where you roll out the dough, roll it out fairly thin.  Sprinkle the crumbled blue cheese on one half of the dough, and fold over the dough to make something like a sandwich - dough, blue cheese, more dough.
• Roll out the dough again until it's very thin.  Then cut into shapes, place it on the cooking tray, brush with melted butter.  Sprinkling salt is option as the cheese is quite salty.  Cook as above

cheese sprinkled on half the dough

fold the dough over
(sorry, I know the photo din't come out all that great, but you get the idea)

rolled out thin again
with the cheese sandwiched between two layers of dough

Other variations I've tried include herbs like rosemary and thyme, and toasted sesame seeds.

Although easily enjoyed on their own, these plane crackers go great with hummus.  Very impressive when served at a dinner party.  Will keep for about 4 days in an air tight container at room temp.


Affordable cooking? Oh yah!  This makes several dozen crackers for next to no cost.  I'm actually not sure how to price it out.  I normally make this as a way to use up too much sourdough starter or sponge that would otherwise go in the compost.  1/2 cup of flour, plus some more for dusting - well, I'm guessing it costs between 1 to 25 cents depending on the flour you use.  Another few pennies for salt and melted butter.  And as for the cheese, I only add that if I have a bit of blue cheese that got pushed to the back of the fridge and is far too pungent to eat on it's own.

So, I'm going to guess an average of 15 cents for the ingredients, another 50 cents to $1 for the oven.  So, about 75 cents and as high as $1.50 for about 6 to 10 dozen crackers.

These are Bento Friendly, just don't pack them next to wet food or they will go soggy.

Allergy friendly?  Mostly.  Beware of yeast and flour sensitivities; also dairy if you choose to use butter and/or cheese.

Healthy?  I think so.  Not only does the sourdough help to render the wheat more digestible and make more nourishment available to your body, you can also control the amount of salt you use.  The recipe is easily adjustable to suit your health needs.  You can even grind your own flour (if using coarse flour, let the dough rest longer before rolling it out) or include sprouted grains.

Earth Friendly: When compared to commercial made crackers that are made with dubious ingredients and shipped long distances, this is an earth friendly food.  Of course, you could go all out and grow your own grain, grind your own flour, &c.

I like to make half plane and half blue cheese and cut them different shapes so I can quickly tell which is which.

Sourdough Pancakes Recipe with optional Strawberries in balsamic glaze

Pancake Tuesday needs something a bit beyond the regular old powder from a box kind of griddle cake.  So today, I decided to make sourdough pancakes.

Sourdough pancakes with strawberries in a balsamic glaze
Ops,
I realized the butter kind of melted while I was taking the photo,
oh well, tastes just as good.

I have to admit, I'm not a big fan of pancakes.  American style pancakes are too sweet and fluffy.  The British ones, all flat like thick crepes that you eat rolled up with lemon and sugar, are just too big a serving size for me.  And just about any pancake are too heavy and too many.  The recipes make too much and encourage me to eat and eat and eat!

So over the last three days, I spent almost all my spare time searching for a sourdough pancake recipe that I would enjoy eating.  And what did I find?  Recipes that made way too many pancakes.

I decided to come up with my own recipe.  I wanted a runnier batter as a nod to the English Pancakes of my youth, but something that still resembled drop scones and American style pancakes.  This is what I came up with.  This will feed two greedy super-hungry people, or up to four more reserved people.  Makes just the right amount for 3 people in my opinion, with a couple of cakes left over for seconds.

The key to this is to have your sourdough sponge (or runny starter) at room temperature and well fed.  If you are making this in the morning, feed it the night before.

Sourdough Pancakes

1/2 cup sourdough sponge, active and bubbly, not too stiff.
1/2 cup milk (or milk like liquid  if you like rice milk or soy milk or whatever)
1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 Tbs melted butter
1/2 tsp maple syrup
pinch salt
1 egg
1/2 tsp baking soda dissolved in 1 tsp water

just about time to flip now

• In a medium bowl, mix together all but the baking soda/water. It will be a bit runnier than regular pancake batter.
• Heat up the frying pan/griddle.  Make sure it's nice and hot so that when a splash of batter hits the pan it starts to cook right away, but not so hot that the grease smokes.  Speaking of grease.  I'm of the firm opinion that pancakes taste best when cooked in lard.  I like to use a mixture of about 4 parts lard and 1 part butter to grease my griddle.  But to each their own.
• When the griddle is ready and everything else is ready, mix the dissolved baking soda into the batter.
• Now ladle, spoon, poor out your batter into the pan.  Keep in mind these will spread out a bit more than you may be use to, so leave room between the cakes.  
• When the bubbles burst and don't close up again, flip the cakes.  It will take about 30 seconds to a min for them to cook on the other side.
• You can serve them as you cook them or stick them in the oven (at about 250F) to keep warm while you finish cooking the rest, then serve them all together.  

Affordable cooking: YES.  I estimate it would be at most $1 for the entire batter, so that's somewhere between 25cent to 50 cent per person.  

But it really goes better with fruit.  Since Pancake Tuesday is out of season for most fruit, add another $1 per person, then maybe a couple of rashers of bacon, so for a complete meal, including toppings, I would give about $1.50 to $2 per person.  You can cut this down a lot if you use fruit that are in season.  Maybe make an apple and rhubarb stew with a touch of honey and nutmeg instead of the strawberries imported from the other side of the world (I'm not proud of that part, but it's a holiday, and I almost never buy fruit out of season).

Here's a simple and rather healthy way to make strawberries taste amazing.  I think the first time I saw this is on a Nigella Lawson cooking show.  It may seem weird to combine these two together, but give it a shot.  Even The Ancient with his excessively sweet tooth gobbles this up like it's made of sugar.  

Strawberry side dish for pancakes

Strawberries (at least two berries per person)

Balsamic vin

• cut the strawberries into fairly small chunks, make them irregular shapes to maximize on the surface area.
• drizzle a small amount of balsamic vin on the strawberries
• mix
• if you put too much vin, add a tiniest pinch of salt, and mix again
• let it sit for at least five min while you cook the pancakes
• done

It is so sweet and so easy.