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Cranberry-Walnut Celebration Bread

With three days before Christmas, while the southern plains are pummeled with snow storms, Chicago enjoys a strange mild winter with temperatures in the mid 40s with no precipitations! As much as I enjoy a white Christmas, and believe me, we have quite a bit of those in Chicago, I also appreciate spending time in the kitchen, baking, instead of shoveling snow.

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Day One - sponge, starter feeding and grains

For those of you lucky dogs and ducks that inherited a piece of my multi-million dollar sourdough starter, here is the first blog post in the series discussing how to actually bake a sourdough bread that will gain back your spouse’s respect, as your kids and friends would bow in front of you and address you as “Your Royal Majesty”. This series is a remastered version of the original Sourdough Chronicles I wrote a while ago.

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You know that fall is approaching when you start baking. Lately the temperature in Chicago was more baking-friendly so I thought it was time for another BBA Challenge dust-off here with a delicious Roasted Onion and Asiago Miche.

This is a protein-intense bread, surely because of the cheese overdrive content but worth making it again… annually. No, really I would make it more often but it requires attention and time. I really liked the asiago cheese in it because it gives an assertive taste, but you can simply substitute it for any other cheese from that same family (like Parmesan or Pecorino Romano).

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The Bagel

I had this next chapter in the BBA challenge on my list for a very long time but only now I got to actually get my hands dirty (literally!): Bagels! Partly because of my quest of finding the highest gluten content flour, and partly because of the residual insanity in my life that never seems to clear up. Here is my first adventure in baking Bagels, hope it’ll inspire you.

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Since it started, I’ve been wanting to spin off my participation in Nicole’s Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge – an ambitious project to bake myself through Peter Reinhart’s book with the same name. Finally, I have my hands full of sticky dough up to my elbows. This week’s challenge is Ciabatta Bread, a North-Western (Liguria) Italian invention that literally means carpet slipper because of its typical shape that resembles it.

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Le Baking – (Bread Day 3)

This was the Happy Day! The day when everything came together. The fun. The Grand Finale. The day you can hug everyone on the street, then get arrested for being weird.

Started off by taking the two baskets out of the fridge to a warm spot for more room temperature rising for about 4-5 hours. I left them in their plastic bags to prevent any crusting.

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Dear friends,

Thought of starting of this first day off 2009 with a live Sourdough Cam showing the growth and live development! How fun this can be?
Now, I don’t expect you starring at the sourdough jar for hours, but you can check the progress from time to time and hopefully inspire you to get your own Sourdough going!

A Happy New 2009 and may your blessings multiply like the yeast in my Sourdough (that is by the BILLIONS!)

Check The Sourdough Cam here.

Yours,
Gabi, Mamaliga.com

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Le Dough – (Bread Day 2)

A somewhat more complicated day. I started off by taking the sponge out of the fridge and cutting it into rough pieces to help it warm up faster (about an hour). I covered it so it would not crust over. Meanwhile, measured out:

4-1/2 cups flour (unbleached, all-purpose, high gluten)
2 Tsp salt
1-3/4 cup warm water

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I know. My mysterious disappearance left some of you wondering if the sourdough process got out of control or I got into depression following the ‘depression’ of the previous sourdough starter. I could say both. As Christmas approached, things seemed to be getting more busier and seemed like there was barely any online time.

To be honest, in a way I enjoyed it! Ha! Go figure.

A new batch and a rebirth

Truth is that I didn’t completely discard the previous starter after deflation. After reading Joy of Cooking‘s recipe for sourdough starter, that suggests actually using some commercial yeast to get things started in a kitchen that’s wild yeast depraved, I took 1 cup of the old one, fed it, and sprinkled a half of Tsp of dry yeast.

The next morning, the thing was erupting. Literally. It came to life all of a sudden during the night. It was so promising, that I decided to let it multiply, and in the mean time start a new batch of sourdough starter out of whole wheat flour, that took the same procedure as the previous 3 day process, but this time I left it to hang out there longer between each feeds, considering that yeast activity was seriously slowed down by the somewhat colder temperature on our home. This batch flourished! To the point that I had to twice clean the top of the fridge because of over spilling. Considering this aggressive yeast activity in both jars, I decided it was time to think of the actual bread.

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Things looked promising!

The 3rd day looked like thing were moving in the right direction. The sourdough starter grew about 1 inch over the indicator line (rubber band). Not as aggressive as during the day before, but given the fact that our night temperature is set to 65 (to save energy), I thought this was okay.
I went on to prepare the sourdough starter breakfast – the usual 1 cup flour , unbleached, all-purpose, and realized that I ran out of bottled water (used ¾ cup of tap water instead). Mixed that with the leftover (1 cup) and took off to church.

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