Sometime after the divorce, my mother went from thinking that hotdogs and frozen peas with Uncle Ben's rice was a suitable dinner to feed her kids, to making her own bread, finding things like artichokes, planting her own garden and making her own jelly.
For awhile, she was bringing her whole wheat bread down to Boston to sell at an upscale food market on Boylston St, but her kids were trading lamb sandwiches made with artisan bread and homemade mayonnaise for a PB&J on Wonder bread during recess.
As she got more involved in improving the home food supply, she hit on a bread that we all liked; sourdough.
I have been making my own bread now for decades, and have dropped off the cliff many of her unbreakable rules. She measured meticulously, I don't measure at all. She insisted that 500 strokes of a wooden spoon was essential when mixing the bread, and kneading for 10 minutes.
I found that though that worked for her, I get a very nice doorstop at the end of the process if I follow this path, so I mix it up enough, knead it as little as possible and never, ever punch it down when it is rising.
Mum had a crock of sourdough starter in the fridge for years, I never paid attention to how she started it, but when the local artisan bread vendor was delivering his weekly shipment to the local store I asked him how he did anything without yeast. He smiled enigmatically and said he had a "relationship" with the yeast in the environment and he invited it in.
A good dodge, but I have been thinking about it.
I decided to start my own sourdough starter bringing yeast along by invitation, I'm not patient enough yet to figure out how to do this with a plain loaf [later, maybe] so I grated a potato and cooked it. After grating the potato into a bowl there was about 1/2 cup of fluid, so I added that to 3/4 cup of organic flour and put it in a glass bowl, covered with a plate. I figured that lets air enough in, without subjecting it to the debris that is continual in this house.
Today is day 5 and I am going to make a loaf of bread with it.
I'll let you know how it goes in part 2 tomorrow.
For awhile, she was bringing her whole wheat bread down to Boston to sell at an upscale food market on Boylston St, but her kids were trading lamb sandwiches made with artisan bread and homemade mayonnaise for a PB&J on Wonder bread during recess.
As she got more involved in improving the home food supply, she hit on a bread that we all liked; sourdough.
I have been making my own bread now for decades, and have dropped off the cliff many of her unbreakable rules. She measured meticulously, I don't measure at all. She insisted that 500 strokes of a wooden spoon was essential when mixing the bread, and kneading for 10 minutes.
I found that though that worked for her, I get a very nice doorstop at the end of the process if I follow this path, so I mix it up enough, knead it as little as possible and never, ever punch it down when it is rising.
Mum had a crock of sourdough starter in the fridge for years, I never paid attention to how she started it, but when the local artisan bread vendor was delivering his weekly shipment to the local store I asked him how he did anything without yeast. He smiled enigmatically and said he had a "relationship" with the yeast in the environment and he invited it in.
A good dodge, but I have been thinking about it.
I decided to start my own sourdough starter bringing yeast along by invitation, I'm not patient enough yet to figure out how to do this with a plain loaf [later, maybe] so I grated a potato and cooked it. After grating the potato into a bowl there was about 1/2 cup of fluid, so I added that to 3/4 cup of organic flour and put it in a glass bowl, covered with a plate. I figured that lets air enough in, without subjecting it to the debris that is continual in this house.
Today is day 5 and I am going to make a loaf of bread with it.
I'll let you know how it goes in part 2 tomorrow.
Eagerly awaiting results (I have a great starter, handed down to me, if you want to enhance yours!).
ReplyDeleteWould love to hear the results. Hope to get baking again once I've put all my kitchen gear in the right places (the whole house for that matter.....)
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