Bread Number 100: Adapted River Cottage Sourdough

Self-awareness is a good quality and never more so than when realizing that a professional male baker's hands doing 10 minutes of kneading is not the equivalent of 10 minutes of kneading by a woman who needs a device or a strong man to open every jar. I have various tricks when it comes to opening jars, but my hands are never enough.

My failure to either almost never adequately knead or to have the patience to adequately knead is why I love stretch and folds, which offer great results without the time, effort, and anxiety of kneading.

Significant Adaptations

The first time I made the River Cottage Bread Handbook Sourdough Bread, I kneaded and the resulting bread prompted my husband to say that it was the worst bread in a long time; damning statement that it was decidedly mediocre. [Read bread book reviews. The River Cottage Bread Book is listed under Advanced to Way Beyond Me.] On the second try, I did stretch and folds; the bread was much better than the first, but still way far off from the favorites.

When I switched to stretch and folds instead of kneading, I also decided to get rid of the guidance to do a once-an-hour degas to the dough.

Pretty Straightforward Ingredients and Instructions 

Sponge

120g starter
272g water
250g bread flour

Mix, cover, and let sit overnight and beyond for 14 hours in a cool, but not cold, kitchen.

Dough

300g turkey red whole wheat flour, which is almost white
12g salt

Mix and cover.

Four stretch and folds, each 15 minutes apart. Could easily do stretch and folds up to 30 minutes apart.

Let rise for five and two-thirds hours.

Prep and Baking

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

I shaped the dough into an oblong shape. Cover for one hour while the oven heats. I also preheated the top of an obling la cloche on a baking stone, but one can easily use loaf pans instead for similar results with a slightly different shape.

Baking

• 10 minutes at 500 degrees.
• Instructions say to decrease according to color of the dough at 10 minutes. Mine was still pale, so I only decreased the oven temperature to 400 degrees. I baked for another 26 minutes and it could have been a couple less.

And ...

Good bread with a nice oven spring. Nice taste, but nothing amazing. Can do an easier recipe with results that are as good or better.

The bread appears white even though I used about 50 percent whole wheat, probably because the fine turkey red flour is incredibly whitish despite being whole grain.

Bread - Number 55: Good, Basic 100% Whole Wheat

Bread - Number 55: A few adjustments on the brain

Mea Culpa.The recipe for this bread is Oaty Whole Wheat from the River Cottage Bread Handbook (with some revisions), but, despite writing a note to myself in my bread notebook, I forgot the oats. However, as the oats are only used as a coating, the actual taste cannot be much different. That's what happens when I wake up super early on a Sunday morning to make a bread. I will try - with another note to self (which usually works, though not foolproof) - to include the oats next time. In fact, I will substitute some of the whole wheat flour with oat flour for an oat taste throughout.

Still, a really nice basic whole wheat bread resulted, though I would change the oven temperature and timing. The River Cottage Bread Handbook has specific oven temperature recommendations. More on that below.  

I used a white whole wheat, which might be a good idea to change to regular whole wheat on the next go around with this one. I would expect a nuttier taste with a regular whole wheat and some oat flour mixed in.

Ingredients and Instructions

Sponge
241g water (1 cup)
82g starter
200g white whole wheat flour

Mixed well, covered and put in fridge overnight. I took out the sponge in the morning, and this being a very warm day (about 85 degrees; not super hot at all for a DC summer), I only left the sponge out on the kitchen counter for 6.5 hours. In fact, at 6.5 hours, the sponge looked like it already might have been a bit past its peak. Next time, on a warm day, I would use less starter, but keep this amount for a fall or winter kitchen.

Dough
sponge
62g water (1/4 cup)
300g white whole wheat flour
10g salt
1.5 tbsp coconut oil (I failed to weigh this.)

Add all of dough ingredients to the sponge and mix well. I suppose one could do an autolyse for 20 to 30 minutes with just the flour and water before mixing into the sponge, but I felt a little too pressured for time. 

Knead for 10 to 15 minutes and amaze yourself at how movie-like a dough, practically satiny, you are creating. Not sure if that texture was the result of kneading or the coconut oil. The dough, however, was not oily in the least. When I think of how intimidated I was by the whole idea of kneading, this accomplishment made me feel oh so proud, as if I had earned every dough spot on my bread apron.

Three manipulations
Shape the dough and cover. I did three dough manipulations over the course of two and a half hours. The recipe calls for the dough to double in size between manipulations, but really, I can never quite tell the difference between "oh that's quite a bit bigger" and doubling. Don't sweat this.

I let the dough sit covered for an hour and then took it out of the bowl.

According to the River Cottage instructions, I pocked the dough with fingertip dents. Then, for good measure, I did a stretch and fold. I then shaped the dough and left it covered for 45 minutes, whereupon I followed the same routine. I repeated once more after another 45 minutes.

Due to conflicts with other stuff going on in my actual life - and after I had already given up much-needed shoe shopping due to my bread obsession - I covered the shaped dough and put it in the refrigerator until the next day.

Baking too early in the morning
Really, my brain does not process actual information before 9 a.m. Written down, plain as the nose on my face, on a blue sticky note no less, was the instruction to coat the dough in oats before baking. 

But it was 7 a.m. and I was psyched to get the dough all baked before walking over to the farmers market. I preheated the oven to 500 degrees, read the Sunday paper, and, an hour later, all I could fit in my brain was the need to slash the dough. I completely forgot the oats. C'est la vie.

Baking advice
I let the oven preheat to 500 degrees with an oblong la cloche for an hour. Right before baking, I took the dough out of the fridge and slashed it with my lame, one of my favorite tools (though nothing is more adored than the Danish whisk). My tip for not burning oneself when transferring the dough is to sit the shaped dough on parchment paper, which I hold and transfer with the oblong-shaped dough right into the la cloche. 

Heeding the recipe instructions, which include tips for temperatures depending on the appearance of the crust at 15 minutes in, I checked the dough after 15 minutes. It was pale. According to the author's suggestion, I reduced the oven temperature to 425 degrees. Total baking time was 40 minutes. The bread is very good, but I suspect it might have turned out just a tad better if I had kept the oven at 500 degrees and only baked for 30 to 35 minutes. More time, probably about 40 minutes total, would be necessary to bake a boule.


The bread had wonderful oven spring and that without adding the recommended bit of commercial yeast. The taste is very good. I will definitely try this one again: (1) with the oat coating and some oat flour, (2) a darker whole wheat flour, and (3) keeping the oven at 500 degrees.

Bread - Number 54: Slightly Improved Dark Rye

This is a situation where the border between redoing a bread and doing a new one gets fuzzy. But this bread became an instant favorite, so why not give it extra space? Plus, I'm happy to make it to 54 - the halfway point to 108, which I despair of reaching unless I soon start branching out a bit more. Seems like I struggle to make any breads other than the favorites because the first 54 have produced quite a bunch of really great breads that I am comfortable with.

So, yes this is a remake of bread #53, my first dark rye, but a bit different and easier. And look at that gorgeous oven spring. I feel proud.

Ingredients and instructions

Sponge
100g water
20g starter
100g rye flour

I would use this amount of starter or less in the summer. My kitchen stayed at approximately 80 degrees (Fahrenheit) all night. In the winter, I might use some more and adjust the flour and water amounts in the dough accordingly.

Mix well and leave covered on counter overnight, or my case 9.5 hours.

Dough
2 cups water or 473g
255g bread flour
320g rye flour (I ran out; it was supposed to be 340g)
12g salt
1 tbsp. caraway seeds (I did not weigh these)

Now that I'm over the exceedingly sticky nature of this dough and I feel no compulsion to knead a rye dough, this bread was a much more easy going experience than the last. Mix all ingredients in the order listed. Cover and leave on counter for 2.5 hours. Might take a little more time in a kitchen below 85 degrees.

Before shaping, sprinkle dough with flour and sprinkle board with flour. Do one stretch and fold. Shape. As this was not a dough to keep its own shape, I used a loaf pan - pre-sprayed with non-stick spray. Cover with plastic and leave on the counter.

Update upon making this bread a few more times
Here's an alternative to the advice in the last paragraph: Forget sprinkling the dough with flour. Wet your hands, lightly wet the dough and wet the board or counter top you will be using to do the stretch and fold and shape the dough. I could not believe how well using a small amount of water worked. It did not stick to my hands or the counter. My inspiration on this was a video on making a rye bread (scroll way down for the "cocktail rye video"), including handling the dough at this particular stage.



Before baking
Due to the wetness of the dough, it will be - okay, it was for me - impossible to tell when this dough was ready to bake. I preheated the oven after shaping the dough to give both an hour before baking. I just assumed an hour would be okay.

In a list form:

• One hour before baking - preheat oven to 500 degrees.
• Preheat top of oblong la cloche in oven. It will roughly fit over the loaf pan. 
• One hour before baking - shape dough and let rest.
• Just prior to baking, sprinkle caraway seeds on top of dough. 

Baking
Gently cover loaf pan with top of la cloche. Be careful as the top of the la cloche does not exactly fit the loaf pan.

Immediately reduce oven temperature to 460 degrees. After 15 minutes, reduce temperature to 440 degrees. I think I left this dough in the oven for another 25 minutes, but it might have been 20. Immediately take bread out of loaf pan and let rest. My general rule is two hours.

Big, nice oven spring, a beautiful dark brown bread and an amazing taste. This is a keeper. I will take pictures next time, promise. I have to say that although this bread was based on a recipe in the River Cottage Bread Handbook, I have substantially altered the hydration, I did not knead at all, and I stopped even referring to its instructions. I still like the book.

[Editor's Note: No text changes. Photos were added.]

Bread Number 53: Radical Dark Rye with Caraway Seeds

Radical for me.

This recipe was adapted, pretty much on the fly, from the River Cottage Bread Handbook, which seems to always produce a dough with a massive flaw that I believe will result in a totally terrible bread. This time I became convinced that the author had  intentionally left out key instructions or ingredients. Evidently, something other than the dough on this one was dark. Anxiety, however, produces good results. (I do believe worrying wards off the worst. Hey, I read my Zen calendar each day, but this is a different perspective.)

Ingredients

Sponge
100g rye flour
100g water
20g starter

Mix well. In a warm, summer kitchen (probably 75 to 80 degrees), I left this mixture  (covered with plastic) out on the counter for 12.5 hours.

Dough
510g water
225g bread flour (That's after the extra flour was added. Add this much from the start.)
340g rye flour
12g salt
7g caraway seeds, plus extra to put on top before baking

This works out to a dough that has a hydration percentage of 90 percent. I had intended to make an 80 or 90 percent rye dough, but it ended up as 65 percent after I added extra bread flour to save the mucky, wet mess. The recipe stated this dough would be "very sticky." That term does not do it justice.

Next to "wet" in the dictionary is a picture of this dough
Mix all ingredients well. The book's directions called for five minutes of kneading, but I have read rye should not be kneaded and kneading a wet mass that was dough-like in name only was problematic. I kneaded, if one could call it that, for two minutes and I spent the extra three minutes trying to get the dough off of my palms and fingers.

I let the dough rise for an hour and 40 minutes. I did one stretch and fold, also difficult due to the lack of cohesiveness of this dough. Again spent three minutes scraping the dough off of my hands and another two washing my hands so that it did not feel like my hands were covered with drying cement. I let the dough rise another for another couple of hours.

Shaping and baking preparation
There's no way to shape a blob. I placed the dough in a large loaf pan instead. First, spray the loaf pan with non-stick spray. I sprinkled more caraway seeds on the top of the dough and covered the pan with plastic. Left out on the counter for on hour.

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. I also heated the top of my oblong la cloche to place over the dough while baking. Wait an hour for sufficient time for oven to heat up and for the dough to be ready.

After placing the dough in the oven, immediately reduce the temperature to 450 degrees. Reduce again at 35 minutes to 415 degrees. Total oven time 46 minutes. I kept the loaf pan covered the entire time with the top of the oblong la cloche.

Take the loaf out of the pan and let rest on a rack for two hours.

Startling results
Not only did this bread rise, it looked picture perfect, medium-brown color, and it emitted those fine crackling sounds upon being removed from the oven. A very hearty taste with a much stronger rye flavor than my minority-rye breads. Made me think of my long line of ancestors during their centuries of life in Eastern Europe. I had the first slice with a pickle. This would go with borsht if I liked that. Great with homemade jam (thank you to my friend for bringing over the jar of jam made with community-garden-grown strawberries). Excellent.

Bread - Numbers 18 and 19

Bread - Number 18: Like a teenager, a starter cannot be woken by an alarm and be instantly happy and productive

Sleepy starter + changing gears mid way = hockey puck 
Hockey puck = inedible

How Not to Make a Bread
Start with a sleepy, just defrosted starter; decide to throw it away; waken it too many hours later with a somewhat more awake starter; knead for the first time, having no idea how or really for how long; watch the bread not rise well at any stage. Buy something else for breakfast.

My apologies to the River Cottage Bread Handbook for an absolute failure of the sourdough recipe.

Ingredients
sponge -
167g white whole wheat flour
5/6 cup water
about half a ladle full of starter

dough -
200g whole wheat flour
1 2/3 tsp salt
1/8 cup water added to recipe

Made 1/3 of recipe for one loaf.

Instructions - though not the right word
Mixed the lackadaisacal sponge ingredients. Let rise overnight. Did not rise. Sponge sitting on counter not risen and waiting to be thrown in the compost. Added the half of the starter during feeding time before throwing the whole thing in the compost.

Sponge with added starter began to bubble. Muted hopefulness. Mixed in starter and let sponge rise for a few hours. No real rise.

Mixed in dough ingredients. Dough was very dry and added an extra approximately 1/8 cup of water. Have no idea what a kneadable dough should look and feel like. Let sit for 10 minutes and began to knead, if what I did could be considered kneading.

River Cottage instructions called for 10 minutes of kneading. Kneaded for 13 minutes, somewhat loosely following the River Cottage kneading instructions, and for longer than recipe called for because assumed my hands not nearly as strong as big guy who wrote the River Cottage Bread Handbook.

River Cottage author said dough should be "smooth and springy" when kneading is completed. Have no clue what that means for a whole wheat dough, which responds differently than white flour dough, and never produces the nice window-pane effect when kneaded.

Won't even recount rest of instructions, except for highlights.

Sensing disaster after kneading, left home and bought bread for dinner at a friend's house.

Dough seemed dry, so before placing in oven, sprinkled top with water. For good luck, cut a cross into the top. Used baking stone and top of la cloche. When removed top of la cloche after 30 minutes, bread looked pretty. Sprung enough for the top to be classic in appearance, though tiny because of minimal spring in oven.

Could not cut the bread. A nice, bread-shaped, large hockey puck. Anxiety setting in.

Bread - Number 19: Sponge imploded
Trying to make up for bread number 18, made almost the same recipe, but with a tiny bit of added commercial yeast. Let promising-looking sponge rise overnight. Too long. Had imploded by the next morning.

Glad the teens are finished because breads number 11 to 19 have not shown themselves to be a stellar group.

Time to reach out for assistance.

Bread - Number 15

Bread - Number 15: The bread that will not be named, discussed or otherwise mentioned ever again.

Total disaster and even had a do over. Not going to recount every step. Tried to do an autolyse. The first try, I left it for 90 minutes, far beyond the 60-minute maximum. The autolyse, consisting of one third bread flour and two thirds whole wheat flour, mixed with all of the water, resembled more than anything else silly putty. It would not allow any mixing or integration of the other ingredients. 

Threw out what could not even be called a dough. It had failed to rise or appear anywhere near an edible substance. 

Second try
On the second try, left the autolyse - same ingredients - for a half hour, but even that seemed too long. (And bread number 14 did fine with a 60-minute waiting period; so who knows.) Only let the dough rise for four hours. Looked fully risen.  Maybe should have stopped at three hours because it looked pretty good then.

In bread making, there is definitely no rule that more of a good thing - or waiting period - is better. Indeed, slight increases can mean disaster.

Despite decent baking time, yada, yada, nothing could save this bread.

It did not rise. The interior appeared pasty, with a couple of cave-like wholes. In terms of effort to cut, let's just say we could have used all those wrestlers who will not be going to the Olympics. Super human strength required to slice a truly terrible bread put this into the garbage after a few bites. At least it did not prove dangerous to eat.

Need a sign or a good bread 
Trying not to sink into a deep depression despite not making a great bread since bread number ten and feeling like a class or perhaps a mentor is needed.

Bread - Number 10

Bread - Number 10: A rye sense of humor

Dedicated to that spark that got me out of bed to start the next batch of dough after taking it easy over the holidays and then holding off due to a mid-winter sinus thing that took a while to go away, like it was welcome at all.

As part of that hibernation-mode, mid-winter inertia, could not get myself to commence the sourdough starter process or make an ambitious bread. Like someone with writer's block who just has to write something, anything, I just had to figure out the recipe and start mixing ingredients. And then, on the day planned to mix up some dough, I was out and about the entire day and well into the evening, by which time the making of a bread had been entirely forgotten. Oops.

As if to add insult to injury, also forgot I had wanted to try the River Cottage Bread Handbook two-step dough mixing process. That is what happens with a very early morning wake up, dragging one's feet into the kitchen, eyes barely open. Looked at a few recipes for rye bread, as the rye flour has been waiting for a few weeks to be opened, and settled on the easy way out with a modified rye bread from Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day. As most rye bread recipes call for starters and I have not started on that process, the field was limited. This recipe uses about one third each of rye, white and whole wheat flours. I used bread flour instead of all-purpose white.

Ingredients
1 1/4 cups bread flour
1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 3/8 cups rye flour (just use almost one half for that 3/8)
1/4 tsp yeast
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp caraway seeds (3/4 get mixed into dough)
1 tsp vital wheat gluten
2 cups water

Instructions
1. Mix dry ingredients thoroughly. Yes, trying a little, a reduced amount of vital wheat gluten. Have found that my breads taste better without it, but playing with less in case it actually adds something beneficial to the bread, which supposedly will be a better rise for a bread heavy on the whole grains.

2. Add water. Mine was a nice wet dough, so it took about five to 10 minutes to mix all through, but it was easy.

3. Cover bowl loosely with plastic. Really should use a plastic bag as reuse is possible, but have not gotten out of habit of using plastic wrap. Feeling environmental guilt in ruining the planet due to extreme laziness.

4. Let the dough stand for 12 to 18 hours. Mine needed 13 hours and that was in a warm kitchen. Refrigerate for up to four days or start the next step with the dough.

[Dough after rising for 12 hours.]

5. Sprinkle the dough with flour. This is a pretty sticky, wet dough so don't be shy. Sprinkle a wooden board or counter top area with flour and when ready to remove the dough from the bowl, cover your hands with flour as well.

6. Put the dough on the board or counter. Flatten the dough into a somewhat irregular, though loosely rectangular shape. Apologies to any geometry teachers. From either end of the not-quite-rectangle, fold in one third to the middle and then from the other side fold in a third to overlap the first fold, as if folding to make an envelope. Now with the new rectangle of dough, fold the long side in half. Feel free to shape a little more.

7. Let stand on the board or counter - loosely covered in plastic - for 15 minutes. Mine rose quite well.

8. Generously sprinkle flour into a bowl or proofing basket (still on my wish list) and transfer the dough into the bowl. Cover with a kitchen towel and let stand for 60 to 90 minutes.

9. At about a half hour in, preheat oven to 500 degrees. If using a la cloche, put it in the oven to preheat as well.

10. While waiting, feel free to watch bread baking videos or ponder starting a sourdough starter, for which there are innumerable websites, recipes, and discussion forums.

11. Tilt bowl with dough onto well-floured baking peel or onto parchment paper placed on the baking peel. Since the dough was wet and not standing well (getting me nervous), I used parchment paper this time so that dough would not end up sticking to the peel.

12. Wet a baking brush with water. Brush on top of bread. Sprinkle top of bread with caraway seeds. Amount optional. (Another method I read about in the River Cottage Bread Handbook is to dunk the dough in a little bit of water and then roll it lightly in a bowl with seeds.)

13. Place dough onto baking stone or bottom of la cloche and then cover with already-heated top of la cloche. Leave for 30 minutes.

Note: While one may make bread without a baking stone or a la cloche, in my experience the results are so much better using these that it is not even worthy of discussion.

14. Reduce heat to 450 degrees, open oven and remove top of la cloche and the parchment paper if you used it.

Anxiety
While the  bread is baking is an appropriate time to confess doubts . It stayed quite wet and did not hold its own shape. Worried about it and don't want to see a bread that shows tell tale signs inside that it did not rise well. Perhaps should have allowed it to rise for longer period initially. Feeling like a good bread baking course would be in order.

15. Remove bread from oven after 10 to 15 minutes. Let stand on a rack for two hours if you can manage not to touch this amazing looking bread that smells like a rye bread strolled out of a bakery oven and into your kitchen.

[Bread right out of the oven.]

Ye of little faith
Oh my god, amazing. Tasted like an incredible rye bread. It is an incredible rye bread. Wow, this is a keeper and it is two-thirds whole grain. Despite fear that this bread would not rise, it rose so well and has a wonderful crumb with lots of air pockets.

[So proud, could not resist adding another photograph.]