April Danann

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Monday, 1 April 2013

Adventures in Bread Baking...Unique & Personal Like....


I am still working away at making different types of breads. I have yeasted breads down to a science and of course my soda breads are a delight to make (and eat!). So, I would say I feel fairly good about each of these.

Last week I even made a yeasted cinnamon loaf – normally I would make this as a Spelt Soda Cinnamon and Raison bread – but the yeasted one turned out very nicely too. It was sweet, spicy and moist and the children loved it.

My sourdough starter is also growing great – each time I feed it (with rye flour) it doubles and then triples in size. It smells like old apples (sweet and fruity) and the breads I have been able to make from it taste lovely.

The one complaint I have is that it doesn’t rise as much as I would like. It also takes hours and hours to rise. This in itself is not such a big deal, I guess. The entire point of the sourdough is how over longer periods of time the dough rises providing the taste, texture and fine crumb of this type of bread.

My sourdough bread seems to rise to a certain point and then stop. It doesn’t go any higher. I wondered if the kitchen was too cold – so I started placing the rising dough in the oven with hot water in a pan.

This has helped tremendously. But, it still not where I would like it to be. So now, I am thinking that perhaps my starter is still too immature – it is only a couple of weeks old….but all else appears to be right.

Or, perhaps this is just the way my sourdough bread will be, well, because each sourdough is unique to the person growing, mixing and baking the loaves. It truly is an individual bread – about as close to who you are as anything you might ever cook.

So, what does this say about me? LOL

April

Rosemary Sea Salt Soda Bread

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