Returning Reinhart

So, tomorrow I will return Reinhart's Artisan Breads Everday.  I tried to renew it but it is on hold and library late fees are embarrassing.  I ended up making two different loaves from his book.  The first was his version of San Francisco Sourdough.  He offers an option (not "purist") where you add in instant yeast.  It was superb.  

Sourdough starter

Mixed dough

Kneaded dough

 The nice part about it (for a household of two, especially) is that you can divide the dough in half and cook part that day and the other part up to three days later.

half to rest in the fridge

half to rise at room temp

I would be lying if I said I did everything according to his recipe.  We were almost out of bread flour so I used 1 1/2 cups white whole wheat, 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour and 4 T vital wheat gluten.  I ended up kneading the dough with about 1/4 cup of whole wheat flour.  The other ingredients were just water, salt, instant yeast, and of course, 1/4 cup of mother starter mixed with 1 3/4 cups bread flour and just over 1/2 cup of water.  That initial starter ferments overnight (6-8 hours) before combining it with the other ingredients to form the final dough.  I hadn't ever used bread flour for the starter before.  I was thinking that's what made this bread so phenomenal...  

Then, I tried his Pain au Levain.  Oh my god.  Oh mon dieu!  And ay dios mio too.  The Pain au Levain also called for bread flour (which we restocked) and whole wheat (also restocked).  I don't have a single photograph to share because this bread was eaten with soups and as toast and made into sandwiches with unprecedented speed.  It was gone within days.  It was amazing.  Absolutely amazing.  I did the same drill of halving the dough and baking some on the first day and retarding the other half.  The other halves definitely have a more developed taste than their younger versions but the texture of the bread seems to suffer from the prolonged rising period.  While eating his first slice of Pain au Levain Andy announced, "This is bread.  Wow."  And decided we could enter it in some sort of bread baking contest, if there ever was such a thing.  (I am sure there is).  This cookbook is officially on my wish list.

Now for another 8PM bedtime.  I miss my appendix.

-S 

Oats + Sourdough making a comeback!

Lil and I have no shame in doing/buying/wearing the same things.  In fact, sometimes we go out of our way to do this... case in point: yesterday we went to Sephora to purchase the exact same makeup and the to Urban Outfitters and bought the same flannel dress.  In high school we had a tradition of buying a matching pair of flip flops every summer.  Whenever I discover a way that Lil does something differently than I might I make sure to state, "That's how we are different."  The instances where I use this phrase are few and far between but it's important to note them when they do come up just so that we remember that we are, in fact, different people.

It should come as no shock that we have baked the same loaf of bread on separate occasions.  Remember the Sourdough Oat Bread I made a while back?  The loaf of Oat Bread that Lil made most recently comes from the same cookbook (Good to the Grain) just without the sourdough kick.

In the repetition of baking those loves I noticed a pattern.  The oats were visible (little white flecks) but not detectable in terms of texture/taste.  They didn't bother me at all except aesthetically.  So, I thought why not try the recipe again and soak the oats before hand?  I put the cup of oats into about 1 1/2 cups water and let it be for about 5 hours.  Then, I proceeded with the recipe.  It was a delicate balance to find the right moisture level since I had the wet starter and the wet oats. In the end I got it.  Or so I thought...

But look.. No white oats visible in the bread.  Success!

They are only on the crust where I sprinkled them just before baking.  Beautiful.  Almost... see how the upper right side of the bread is sort of.  Um.  Droopy?  Yeah, droopy.  Welllllllll I don't know how to explain this except to say that my loaf pooped.

The side of the bread fell off and onto the stained oven stone below.  I have no idea why this happened. In the oven of all places?!  I would have thought if it would happen it would have fallen off during it's second rise.  My best guess is that the dough was still a bit too wet and fell off because it was too heavy.  

Regardless, this bread makes a great breakfast spread with peanut butter, jam, or avocado.  

Sourdough loves Oats (soaked).

Oh, and what became of the little dookie I found on the oven stone?  I ate it.
-Sar

PS Lil and I are staging a comeback from our beginning of February blues.  The new Amazonian illuminating clay serum and flannel dresses are just the beginning.  Watch out.

Rustic Sourdough

Our sourdough did not have a very happy end to 2010 or beginning to 2011.  While everybody was off on their winter vacations our sourdough got very, very neglected.  A while back we had frozen the sourdough before we went on vacation and learned not to bake with the batch out of the freezer but to feed and discard at least once.  This time around we did not plan so wisely.  Left the sourdough to fend for itself in the fridge.  And wow.  The sourdough got upset.

I have been nursing it back to health for the past month and I am ready to let it go wild in this KAF Recipe.  I modified it a bit by adding 2 cups whole wheat flour in place of the all purpose.  I only ended up needing about 4 cups of flour total (since whole wheat sucks up more liquid).  I also added 4 teaspoons of vital wheat gluten for fun.  I baked a bit longer than 30 minutes - closer to 40 - because I only did one big boule on the stone:

And it grew up to be a beautiful,

delicious, round loaf.

One of my New Year's resolutions is to treat the sourdough starter with the love and respect it deserves.  We're off to a good start.

XO,
Sarah

PS It turns out my signature baking move is dusting with wheat germ.  Those are the specks you see on top.  Makes a great upper crust.

Seitan - the wheat meat

For vegetarians/vegans and the people who love them - you may know of this mysterious chewy stuff called seitan.  It is similar to your tofu or tempeh because it acts as a meat substitute in a lot of different dishes.  It is NOT like tofu or tempeh (both made from soybeans) because this alternative protein is wheat based.  In my mind, making it fair game for The Upper Yeast Side blog.  

Seitan is basically just wheat gluten.  Here goes a basic (and my first attempt) at homemade seitan...

Basic Seitan
(Printable Recipe)
Prep time 10 minutes
Cook time 1 hour
This recipe yields a LOT of Seitan - enough for 5-6 separate dishes that would serve about 3-4 people...

Dough:
2 cups vital wheat gluten
2 teaspoons onion powder
Season with about 1/2 teaspoon sage, and 1/2 teaspoon marjoram, or a "chicken seasoning" which will likely have both in addition to some rosemary and black pepper.  I added a dash of cayenne because I planned to use it in a mexican style dish of Peter Berley's.
2 cups water

Broth:
6 cups water
2 tablespoons molasses
2 tablespoons soy sauce

Bring broth to a boil.
Combine dough ingredients and knead for a hot second to get it all elastic-y.  Cut into little chunks (about 2x2) and toss into the boiling broth.
Let it boil for 1 hour.
Drain.
Prepare as you need for your meal.
Store extra seitan in the freezer.

I bought that Bob's Red Mill bag of vital wheat gluten for about $7 at a UES health food store.  Since a package of seitan in the store costs about $6 and I made roughly 6x as much with only a third of the bag... Safe to say it pays to make homemade seitan.  

In the process of cooking this I legitimately thought this stuff was going to take over my stovetop.  It expanded to fill the entire pot from it's original size just barely poking out from beneath the six cups of liquid.

As I mentioned, this recipe yields a LOT of seitan.  Feel free to halve it or even quarter it if you aren't sure you'll love seitan.  I could have made the Peter Berley recipe at least 5 more times with the leftover seitan.  I wrapped manageable amounts of seitan in plastic wrap and put all of the bunches into one plastic bag and right into the freezer.

We made a black bean dish from Fresh Food Fast:

And we ate until we were extremely uncomfortable.

Here's the thing about vital wheat gluten.  It seems to know just when you are looking for it.  If you go to the grocery store specifically searching for this stuff, it won't be there.  The other people in the store and store workers have never heard of it.  However, if you happen to meander by the very same aisle you scoured without the intent of picking up vital wheat gluten it will magically fall off the shelf into your basket.  True story.  Not to mention, you'll start noticing this stuff in every grocery you checked previously.  Just when you aren't looking for it.  Get it whenever you can.  Store it in the fridge or freezer.  Brands I've used include: Arrowhead Mills, Hodgson Mill, and Bob's Red Mill.  Tell us if you find any other good ones.  

Good luck in your search for and cooking of homemade seitan!

Sar

PS The previous sourdough-oat loaf just got turned into French Toast and devoured.  Thank you Andy Jack.