Bread!

[Kittish]

I think the multiple risings and kneading in between them helps develop the gluten in the flour, which is what gives the structure to bread. In any case, I enjoy kneading the dough, it's a good place to work out a little bit of pent up frustration.

Today is cream puff day! I made the pastry shells for them yesterday, and they came out well, just a tiny bit overdone. But not quite burnt, so they're usable. I think maybe the touch of honey I added to the pastry may have caused that. This afternoon, just before we take them to our gaming night, I'll get some cream whipped up and fill them.

[MaggieTheCat]

Man, my starter is on steroids or something. This is day 4 (right? I think...) and I already have the yellowish-brownish layer of liquid on top and it smells...well, kinda rank, really. I've been throwing half of it out/feeding it every day as suggested and the stuff sitting in the garbage can right now is smelling up the kitchen. It's not an awful smell, but VERY strong.

[Kittish]

Pour what you throw out down the sink, that will help cut down on the smell. It's safe for septic tanks, and if you just run plenty of water while you're dumping it, it won't clog up your pipes either.

Yes, it does get a fairly strong smell fairly quickly. It should be starting to smell decidedly boozy at this point. Keep it lightly covered, don't want mold spores or anything unfriendly like that to upset your young yeasty beasties.

If it turns any color other than the off white of flour paste (pink, or green or black or anything else like that), other than the layer of yellow/brown liquid that you stir back into it (just for the record, that liquid is called hooch. It would probably qualify as being a very thin beer), then you'll need to toss it all and start over as that is an indication that something else has taken over the culture.

[MaggieTheCat]

Hey Kittish, that recipe you posted makes 2 loaves, right? Do you think I could mix it all up, let it rise once overnight, then bake one loaf and stick the other in the fridge for a few days? I don't think my husband and I can eat 2 loaves of bread in just a few days and I don't want the finished product to go bad.

[Kittish]

Yes, it makes two loaves (or more if you want them smaller). What I would do would be to let it do the first rise, then shape however many loaves you wanted to make and wrap the extras really carefully in plastic and put them in the freezer. When you're ready to bake them, take them out and let them thaw on the counter (on a plate or cutting board or something of course), when they thaw they should do the second rise just as if they hadn't been interrupted. Then bake and enjoy.

Another thing you can do is bake all your loaves at once and freeze the ones you don't use right away, again well wrapped in plastic. Treat it just like any frozen bread at that point.

And here is today's project! Sourdough cinnamon rolls! This is just a half recipe, as I'm testing it out. If it works well I'll make a full batch for gaming this weekened. This first pic is just the dough, freshly made, with all the little yeasty beasties just starting to wake up.

[Kittish]

Further cinnamon rolls in progress pics-

This is the dough after it's risen for several hours. I decided not to let it go overnight because I want the sourdough flavor to be very mild. This is, after all, a sweet roll.



Next is the dough all rolled out and ready for the cinnamon and brown sugar filling.



Finally, the rolls themselves, set up for their second rise. They're a bit closer together in the pan than they should be, I ran out of pan but didn't have enough rolls to justify using a second pan.



Once they've had a couple of hours (or longer) to double in size I'll bake them and put icing on them. Probably going to go with just a basic powdered sugar glaze, as most of the people I know around here don't care for cream cheese frosting.

[MaggieTheCat]

They look really good! Your dough definitely rose (raised?) more than mine did. Maybe I just need to let my starter sit a few more days.

[Kittish]

Could be Maggie. I waited a solid two weeks before I started using my starter. Need to give it time to mature. Now I'm trying to restrain myself from going totally nuts using it in stuff.

Oh, and an update. They came out really well! Here are pics of them fresh out of the oven (then went POOF!).



I took one of them with the icing on, but it doesn't want to cooperate with getting from my phone to my computer. I just had to sample one right after I got them iced. Nom!

[Kittish]

Start a loaf like normal, and then when you're ready to let it do the last rise, roll up some garlic and butter into the dough when you're forming the loaf.

Don't add it before the dough has risen a couple times. Garlic is antibiotic and will kill your yeast and give you flat bread if you're not careful how you add it.

I finally had an excuse to try this. I didn't use my sourdough for it, just made plain old french bread.

I made up a batch of the butter, garlic, and herbs that I usually do for garlic bread. Rolled out the dough, spread the butter mix on it and sprinkled grated parmesan and romano cheese lightly over it, rolled the dough back up and let it rise. No trouble with the second rise at all.

It came out terrific! Though next time I'll either use a bit less butter or make darn sure I use a baking sheet with raised sides so I don't have to clean dripped butter out of my oven. Most of the butter that leaked out got soaked back up by the bread so it wasn't a huge mess.

I also tried 100% whole wheat sourdough... That one didn't work out quite as well. It didn't rise worth a darn, so instead of loaves I made flatbread rounds/pita pockets. They're really tasty, and it's a surprise to get sourdough flavor when you're looking at dark whole wheat breadlike stuff.

Next project is going to be a wheat/white sandwich loaf with oats, flax seeds and sunflower seeds added in. That should come out tasty.