Sourdough-- Bittman Style

Well, hello everybody, and welcome to the chronicle of my cooking and baking adventures down here in Georgia. I could, I suppose, begin with some sort of self-introduction, but I assume that most people reading this already know me, and that those who don't are far more interested in recipes than in revealing personal tidbits. I will say that what you're most likely to find in this blog is a mix of recipes penned by my favorite chefs and recipes designed on the fly as I satisfy my culinary cravings and curiosities. I love to cook, but my deepest food passion is for baking (hence the blog title). It seems only fitting that I begin with bread. This bread, to be precise:

This bread is the sourdough loaf I learned about in Mark Bittman's The Art of Cooking Everything Vegetarian. I'm a pretty big fan of Mark Bittman's (he's a food writer for the NYT; if you haven't checked him out, you should), but I'd never read anything of his not linked to the Times until stumbling upon his cookbook at the library last week. 

Sourdough is an elusive creature, made thus by the fact that it relies on a starter. I have dreams of one day sneaking into the bustling kitchen at Boudin's, snagging a fistful of that century-old, solid-gold mass of sour goop and secreting it back to my own refrigerator. But, considering that Boudin's is in San Francisco and I am here, I've had to settle for less. Which is just as well, considering that stealing Boudin's starter would likely lead to unpleasant consequences. 

Sourdough starter isn't very difficult to make, but it does require time and patience and luck. In fact, making a loaf of sourdough bread start to finish is a several-day process, because the starter itself needs a few days prior to mixing the bread dough, and then there's typically a long rising period. And then, even after all the hard work and the waiting and waiting, there's no knowing how sour your bread will taste. Starters certainly do age well, as long as they're fed, but it might take a few weeks, or even longer, before breads baked with it have the traditional sour taste I associate with so many wonderful California bakeries. Even then, it might not match up ( Northern California yeast is just really quite excellent), but that shouldn't stop you from trying! Sourdough is exciting! Each starter, and thus each loaf resulting from it, is a unique concoction of taste and texture dependent not just on the commercial yeast you begin with but on the natural yeasts hanging around your environment. This is most certainly a locally-powdered bread. So, have at! At the least, you'll get a beautiful , deeply-flavored loaf lovely for sandwiches and smears of butter. 

We begin with the starter:

Ingredients

-1.5 cups bread flour

-1/8 tsp. yeast (yes, that's all)

-1 cup wrist-temperature water

Procedure: Combine flour, yeast, and water in a large bowl, mix with a wooden spoon, cover loosely (so natural yeasts can join what's already inside), and tuck into an out-of-the-way spot. Stir every 8-12 hours and wait patiently for it to get bubbly and develop a bit of a sour smell. In most climates, this'll likely take 2-3 days. In Georgia summer, it took one. 

Once the starter's mature, you can begin the bread. But, if you aren't going to be baking right away, stick the starter in the fridge. When the time to bake comes, you're ready for step two: Bread Baking Eve.

Ingredients

-starter

-2 cups of bread flour (I sometimes use part all-purpose whole-wheat)

-1.5 cups wrist-temperature water

Procedure: If you've made the starter according to Bittman's directions, you use all of it during this step (don't worry-- you'll get a lot of it back later). Dump the starter into a large bowl and mix in the flour and water until smooth. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit at room temperature for at least 6 hours or overnight. It will get bubbly and foam a bit. And do make sure you use a large bowl--I didn't the first time and ended up with the blob all over my counter. Whoops. 

Sleep well, and dream of good bread. When morning comes, your bowl should look something like this. (do excuse the quality of my photographs. I have a very temperamental camera that I hope to replace soon.) 

Ingredients

-1 cup bread flour

-1 cup rye flour (if you don't have it, all-purpose, bread, or whole wheat will be fine. Again, it'll affect texture and flavor to some extent, but I've baked with and without rye flour and it's good both ways)

-1/2 tsp. yeast

-2 tsp. salt

Procedure: 

1) Transfer half of the starter/flour mix to a covered container and stick it back into the fridge until the next time you bake bread. 

2) Dump the other half...into a food processor. Yeah, I know. For some people this probably sounds like a heavenly prospect, while for others (myself included) it seems simply unthinkable. Machine-kneaded bread? What is this, the 1950s? I love the hands-on element of bread baking. But, for sourdough at least, this really works. 

3) Add the bread flour, rye flour, yeast, and salt to the food processor and turn it on for about a minute. The ingredients should meld into a moist and well-defined ball. If it's too sticky, add flour a few tablespoons at a time. If it's too dry, add a little water.  Process for 5-10 seconds after each addition. 

4) Put the dough into a large bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and leave at room temperature for at least an hour.

5) Lightly flour a countertop, and shape the dough into a boule or a baguette or whatever you like, really. (To make a boule, form the dough into a ball and then stretch it by lightly pulling the dough from the center out to the sides and tucking it under. Make a "seam" on the bottom of the loaf by tightly pinching the tucked-under bits together.) Cover with plastic wrap or a damp towel and let it rest and rise while you pre-heat the oven to 400°F. 

6) When the oven is pre-heated, transfer the loaf to a greased baking sheet and score it a couple times with a sharp knife. Turn the oven down to 375°F and put the bread in. Make sure there's not a baking rack too close above the one the bread is on, because these loaves PUFF, I tell you. 

7) Unlike most bread recipes, which specify a baking time, Mark Bittman recommends an internal thermometer.  He says that the internal temperature of the loaf should be at least 210°F, which for me meant baking the bread past its initial "golden brown and hollow sounding" stage. What looked and felt like a done loaf was, according to Mark Bittman, 20 degrees shy of where it needed to be. So, if you have a thermometer, use it; if not, bake the bread longer than you think you need to--probably at least 40-50 minutes, although each oven is different. 

8) When the bread has reached the desired temperature, stick it on a rack to cool, slice in, and smile. You've just made sourdough.