Let me begin with this - the original recipe for a super easy 'compromise sourdough'. It's what I've been experimenting with because I'm too big a chicken to dive in and just go yeast-less all at once.
Baby steps, Baby steps.
So you can start this little pictorial journey by reading Gwen's recipe and technique for fridge-fermented, low carb bread HERE>> or you can scroll on and come back to it later... totally up to you.
This here is my first try using Gwen's recipe. I forgot my baby step mantra and dumped in my homemade, sprouted grain flour, which can be tricky - especially since sprouting the grain dissolves a lot of the gluten - which is what gives bread its nice bread-like texture. I let it sit in the fridge for 5 days total. Since the four was very dark and fragrant, the bread turned out dark and fragrant and had a very pronounced toasted grain flavor. I also didn't add nearly enough salt, so it also tasted flat. It goes in the Brick Bread Category. There was no buoyancy, no crumb, just dense-dense-dense. It was pretty good toasted with butter and apple butter...
Meet Take Two, which came out looking and tasting like Bread. I used half home-ground whole wheat and half King Arthur all-purpose white flour and it was an overwhelming success. This dough waited for 6 days before I baked it up and it made two gorgeous loaves. It had an interesting texture, very much like a baguette, but it was finely grained which made it good for toast and sandwiches. We really enjoyed this batch and I found that after eating it I didn't have the usual severe bloating that normally follows my consumption of any sort of bread. Yay!!
I made this loaf yesterday morning. It had the same flour mix and the same 6 day waiting period the last batch did. I decided to try a trick I'd read where you put your loaf in a cold oven and then turn it on, letting the bread rise and bake all in one easy step. Well. My loaf rose and tried to leave and then made this creepy franken-baby-loaf on top that adhered itself to the pan and had to be pried off with a butter knife. Lesson learned. I shall let my bread rise *before* baking.
Notice the raw honey sitting behind it? A favorite snack at our house is buttered toast with honey - it's so delicious and the raw honey contains enzymes that help to break down the bread even more. The honey has to be really raw though - and this stuff is! I found it at the discount food store for a remarkable price (nearly 95% off the retail amount) and it's really raw - so raw it has little bee pieces and comb bits on top. Ewww - but authentic.
The other half of the dough I used for flatbread for dinner last night. It was excellent- I couldn't have been more thrilled. I baked it on my stoneware pan and we were all amazed at how it didn't make us 'feel fat' afterward, even though it was bread and cheese...
(If anyone is curious, I topped the dough with organic olive oil, crushed garlic, Italian herbs, salt, parmesan cheese and slices of mozzarella. Baked in a 500 degree oven **the stone was pre-heated** for 7 or 8 minutes and served in strips with seasoned tomato sauce for dipping.)
And here is a picture of my stoneware baking sheet. Because it's really neat and deserves a little spotlight. I was given this as a wedding gift from some very dear friends!!
Until then, eat healthy, live hearty,
Mrs.
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