Mamaliga

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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Panettone

Merry Christmas! This is the second time me baking the Panettone from Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice for the BBA Challenge. I didn’t blog about it since there were some things I wanted to tweak and adapt from his original formula (that, with all respect to the man, doesn’t even come close to the quintessential Panettone Milanese). Quite a few changes. Now I know why Nicole calls the BBA Challenge a ‘challenge’…

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Strawberry Short Cake

As every caring husband would do, I wanted to get the perfect Birthday gift to my dear wife, cooking the perfect meal,  make her day, etc., and as every procrastinator husband does, I realized half day into it that I did NOT have a plan!

Luckily I went grocery shopping a day before so I had the ingredients but I had to improvise and this is the menu I came up with, preparing the whole dinner in little less than 3 hours.

So I was thinking slightly Italian given the fact that she likes Mediterranean simplicity, taste and colors.

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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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Reading reports of the sourdough starter showing first signs in the first 24 hours, I started panicking. No signs of life (aka bubbling surface) in my concoction. Little did I know what was actually hatching inside. So, I took my wife’s advice and gave it another night sleep chance.

Next morning (I’ll call it beginning of day 2) to my surprise. The surface showed signs of bubbling, meaning that was a good thing! I in turn was bubbling with joy, while the others in my household rolled their eyes.

My suspicion is that the delay in life signs is the Chicago weather that’s currently 10 degrees F outside. So since we want to conserve (save) energy, we run our heat at 68 F during the day and at 65 F at night. So, I would suspect that in a warmer environment, the signs of life will show earlier.

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