Oh no! Not fry bread!

Yes, friends, once again I'm attempting to do this thing called "cooking". In this case, it's deep frying, and the idea was to salvage a lump of flour and yeast that was supposed to rise into a glorious sourdough to be baked this morning.

But it didn't.  Rise, that is.  I should have taken a photo of the lump, but really, it was too embarrassing.

So. About the bread loaf that wasn't. I've gotten to the point where I can make a quite acceptable loaf of regular bread, but given that I'm using sourdough starter to do so, the result has been a big disappointment to me.

Not that it doesn't (usually) rise.  Not that it doesn't make a pretty loaf of bread.  And not that I don't still eat it, but... it's just white bread.  Know what I mean?

I want sour sourdough, not just bread.

Internet research reveals that one method for getting a more sour flavor is adding some rye flour to the starter. OK, I did that. The effect of rye flour is supposed to be like candy for a toddler. It's supposed to make hyper starter.

My starter looked and smelled pretty much the same after dosing it with rye flour.

Another trick is supposed to be maintaining a drier starter. My starter is like batter, but some people's starters are like, well, lumps of dough.  I chose a consistency somewhat in between.

Anyway, being me, I didn't go at this scientifically. I used rye flour plus I made a sponge that was less like batter and more like really soft dough. Um... was the sponge the part that was supposed to be drier? I can't remember. I used about ten different sources for this experiment and they kind of got mixed up in my head.

Should it have been a clue when, after 10 hours, the sponge was more or less just sitting there? Like a lump? Possibly. Nevertheless, I went ahead and added more flour, kneaded it, put it in the bowl to rise so I could punch it down in another 10 hours.  Making sourdough isn't a speedy process.

When I punched it the next morning, it didn't even twitch, much less sag. Very tough bread dough. Hmmm. I figured I'd give it another 10 hours to get a life.

It's dead Jim.

I was sad to be unable to detect any signs of life.  This morning I was faced with the option of just throwing the lump out or doing something else with it. That's when I came up with the idea of fry bread.

Not a slice of bread that's fried (like French toast) but dough that is cooked in oil, shortening, or lard, rather than baked. Not exactly healthy but hey, the fry bread I've had at pow-wows and various fairs in New Mexico is darned yummy. Really, it would be like making a stiff pancake, I figured.  How hard could that be?

I don't have any lard. The very word sounds nasty to me, and I know where it comes from. Ewwww. The white pasty glue-like look of shortening is icky, too.  But oil?  I've got oil.  

I used virgin olive oil. Maybe I'd end up with a non-traditional taste, but then I don't think fry bread usually is made with sourdough starter, either.

I tend to go through a bunch of recipes and pick the parts I agree with most and then combine the parts.  Just sayin'. The fry bread recipes I looked at said to use lots of oil. Deep frying, you know. Yeah, well, they weren't using expensive olive oil, either, so I poured about a quarter inch in a small cast-iron pan and heated it up. 

Meanwhile, I mashed a smallish ball of dough (a couple inches in diameter) into a flat disc. I fancied myself patting it into a tortilla sort of deal like a pro. I'm pretty sure I got all the cat hair off of the ones that I dropped. Never mind. The hair would be sterilized in the oil anyway.

And then I cooked them, one by one.  It took a long time.  The whole house still smells like fry bread and olive oil.

The end result: Not bad. 

Will I do it again real soon?  Um... let me get back to you on that.

NOTE:  Don't try this at home, kids, not if you want traditional fry bread. Dense, really sour disks of cooked dough aren't for everyone. But boy howdy, they do taste good with peanut butter.

Bread report: Tangy and tasty

I baked the sourdough bread I started two days ago on the wood stove this morning. Grill baking will wait till I can get a small propane tank filled. This dough was from a different recipe for grill baking: the baking temperature is a lot hotter and the dough a lot stickier. But it had risen nicely by this morning and I had high hopes for good bread no matter what.

When I took the bread off the wood stove I let it cool in the pan a bit before flipping it out onto the rack. But oops, the top was still unbaked dough. It stuck to the rack when I picked up the loaf (hence that crustless space in the center).  Stuck to my fingers too. I put the loaf back on the stove, upside down this time, and baked it further. 

It doesn't look too bad and look at those nice holes in the loaf. So far my bread's been kind of evenly grained like store-bought white bread. Eeeeew!  I wanted those holes! So good for catching melted butter when the bread's warm. And yes, so very tasty.

My sourdough starter is nice and strong now, meaning it's very forgiving. Good thing, too, because obviously I need a starter like that!

Bread baking adventures - baking on a grill

In another life I was a mad scientist. In this one I'm a modern contrarian.

As those who know me are aware, my idea of fun is to try something new and different without reading the directions. I guess it must be something in my personality, or my astrological chart or some deep-seated neurosis from my childhood.  Be that as it may, reading -- much less following -- directions is so not me.

I decided some years back that because I love sourdough bread, I should make my own. How that developed is a story for another time, but I am now accomplished at baking bread on top of a wood stove (not in a Dutch oven).

That's well and good, but as spring progresses, the days are warming up to the point where I don't particularly want to be building fires in the wood stove, even first thing in the morning. So my most recent adventure is learning how to bake a loaf of bread on an outdoor grill.

Oh no, no, no. Don't you go thinking I'm weird. I Googled it and discovered baking bread on a gas grill is old hat. Lots of people do it (and here I thought I'd come up with something unusual). Besides, this is legitimate research: The other day I got invited to a friend's house to make pizzas in her new outdoor pizza oven. I want one, not so much for pizza (though I'd use it for that, too) but for break baking.

But wow, what an investment in time and labor to build one. Hence the grill. If I learn to use it and like baking bread outdoor enough to keep using it, maybe I can justify building a nice wood-fired oven over in a corner of the yard.

So okay. Research.

Not that I was going to read the directions closely, mind you, but I did skim through a few web pages to get the gist of it. Part of my tendency to skim is because unfortunately much of the info out there for the weird projects I do is useless (poorly written, written by people who've obviously never done it, or the instructions call for equipment I don't have). I figure if the instructions have to be worked around there's no point in reading closely, right? 

And yes, I will have to do some creative work-arounds for baking bread on a grill. For one thing my grill is older. It doesn't have a fancy two-level rack system to keep the bread from getting scorched by the flames, nor does it have a built-in thermometer. For another thing I want to use the heavy enameled cast-iron bread baking bowl I always use, not a stone cloche (really?) or a pizza stone (could I just use a rock?) or doubled cookie sheets (who knows where mine are). 

And for that matter... where is my grill, anyway?

So, earlier today I decided I should be proactive and get the grill out from where it's been stored for several years. I had to use a shovel to dig a hole to lower it so I could pull it out from under... no, no point in going there. Let me simply say I got it out of where it's been stored and tugged it over to my yard next to the house. Opened it up and whoa. Good thing I was being proactive. Lots of dust in there. It would be a good idea to see if the grill would even ignite and hold a flame, and of course doing so would burn off the cobwebs, too.

Then the next question: Which, if any, of my propane tanks actually had gas in it? Hint: None of the small tanks that I can lift. I eyeballed the four-foot tall tank that requires my using a hand cart to move it. I thought about how I'd have to unhook it from what it was hooked up to, and the gymnastics that would entail. I thought about how much easier it would be to get a propane tank filled next time I'm in town. 

See how these things go?

Looks like I will bake this next loaf of bread on the wood stove after all. It's not nearly as warm in the house as I thought. A fire would be nice. Yes it would. Really.

Sourdough cinnamon raisin bread - WARNING: non-dietetic!

I tried a new recipe for sourdough cinnamon raisin bread that I have been taste-testing all morning (in the interests of research only, to be sure).  I got it from http://vegannomnoms.blogspot.com/2009/03/sourdough-cinnamon-raisin-bread.html

As you might be aware, I’m not into cooking, but I have this thing about sourdough – I don’t know why but I feel compelled to succeed at making a great loaf of sourdough bread.  I have set my handicaps:  Little patience for kneading, no cheating with electrical appliances, and, oh yeah, no oven.

That’s another story, the oven thing.

Anyway, now that my stomach is full of mildly underbaked sourdough cinnamon raisin bread, I have a new challenge:  Getting the baked-on sugar cement off the pan.

See,  I didn't follow the recipe exactly – I always preach following exactly the first time I make something from someone else’s recipe but in fact I rarely do that myself.  In this case I didn't have brown sugar (well, I probably do have some but I didn't look very hard for it after a cursory glance at the front of the shelves).  I also added a little dried lemon zest I had - I like the citrus taste in cinnamon rolls I enjoy at one particular local restaurant and thought that citrus might be a nice addition to the bread.  The result is pretty good but I think orange would be better. 

As for the sugar cement - the recipe calls for sealing the edges of the dough when rolling it up after sprinkling the dough with the sugar/spice mix.  I didn’t do much of a job kneading and maybe the recipe doesn’t call for enough flour (or maybe I didn’t measure the liquid part accurately – it eyeballed about right, it seemed to me) but for whatever reason, there was a lot of sugar leakage.

That didn’t seem all that important at the time.  I got a hint when I went to pick up the loaf to put in a bowl to rise and it started falling apart.  And after being left to rise overnight, the dough was kind of sitting in some sweet liquid broth – from the raisins?  Don’t know, but I poured some out.  Guess whatever it was, it had a high sugar content so now I have baked sugar cement on the bottom of the pan.  Also, as I mentioned above, it's undercooked – the recipe called for preheating to 450 and baking at 400, I preheated to 400 and ended up baking at 375 more or less.  That’s because I’m using a stove-top camping oven that just doesn’t like getting much higher than 400.  Like I said, that’s another story.

Meanwhile, the bread still is yummy - with all that cinnamon, sugar and raisins, how could it not be?  

Lif's Supposedly San Francisco Style Sourdough Bread

Note that my starter is iffy and my techniques are non-traditional.  I get hockey pucks as often as I get good bread.  The recipe below, however, is what I followed and got a really nice sour loaf - the longer rising time is what lets that sour develop.

1 c starter that's been sitting out at room temperature for at least 12 hours

1 c whole wheat flour

2 1/2 cups water

2 tsp salt

Whisk together all the above ingredients.  If you whisk the starter before you measure it, you'll get a better measurement (you'll whisk the bubbles out of it).

 5 cups bread flour

Add flour a cup at a time, mixing with a spoon as long as you can.  When you can't mix with the spoon any longer, start kneading the dough, adding in the flour that way.  You might need more flour or less depending on factors I have no clue about.  I occasionally wet my  hands and that keeps the dough from sticking to my skin so much, but I'm told I'm a weenie for worrying about that.

Knead bread 10-15 minutes.  Let it rest half an hour or so, then divide it into loaves or shape it as you want and let it rise at room temperature, covered, till doubled.  The original recipe I used said this would take 12-15 hours but it took my dough 48 hours in the pilot-lit oven to double.  I use the oven because 1) my house gets cold in winter and 2) fewer cat & dog hairs get into the bread - they get on the dough somehow even if it's covered.  I don't cook much so tying up my oven for 2 days is no big deal.

Preheat the oven to 375° (take the dough out first if you used the oven to let it rise!).  Slash the top of the loaves with a razor before you bake it- I don't know what good that does but the instructions say to do that and it looks cool.  Bake about 45 minutes.  The original recipe said to bake till the inside temp gets to 190° but I've never put a thermometer in the bread - I might try that sometime, since I think that would mean fewer hockey pucks.  Also, I'm at high altitude - if you're a sea level baker, the internal temperature should be 205°.  

Note:  If you have stronger starter you will probably get a shorter rise time.  If the dough gets doubled at an inconvenient time for baking, you can punch it down, knead it for a few minutes and let it rise a second time - the second rise time will be shorter.  Or you can ignore the dough for a few hours till you're ready to bake, which is what I do.  

Stovetop Sourdough Bread

Stovetop Sourdough Bread
Copyright © 2010 Lif Strand

I love sourdough bread – what can I say? It’s bread – that’s a big plus right there, since I really love bread (especially fresh and warm with lots of butter on it). I was introduced to sourdough in San Francisco in 1968 and from that point on, San Francisco style sourdough bread was the non plus ultra of breads for me.

I’ve been trying to make my own sourdough for the last four decades with poor results. I’ve used all kinds of different types of starter and ended up with lots of hockey pucks and bread that was OK except for not being sour.

Now I’ve added another hurdle: I decided I wanted to make sourdough bread on top of the stove. I started this process this past winter when my wood stove was providing the heat in my house and it seemed natural to use that heat for something more, like bread making.

Did I mention I don’t like to cook very much, and I don’t like to knead bread? Never mind.

To cut to the chase, this is what I did to make the best sourdough bread I’ve ever produced:

1. Find some sourdough starter on the web. When it arrives, follow the directions for a few weeks till you have enough to split the starter I half. Give some to someone who actually knows how to make bread, so she will tell you if the starter’s any good. Meanwhile, keep using starter as directed (either the instructions that came with the starter, some recipe on the web or even cook book instructions) to make hockey pucks.

2. When the starter’s about half a year old, start abusing it. In the summer it’s too warm to cook anywhere much less on the wood stove, so that’s a good time to take this step. Don’t feed the starter any sooner than two weeks apart. Don’t remove some and replace with equal amounts of water and flour, just add about half a cup of water and half a cup of flour onto the old starter and mix well. Keep it in the fridge and forget it for as long as you can without it going bad. When you think you’re right on the edge, add some more flour and water to keep the starter alive.

3. When you’ve got starter that smells really, really sour and has about an inch of icky looking gray liquid on top, divide it in half and add one cup of water and one cup of flour to each batch. Mix well. Put the starter you intend to abuse forever back in the fridge, put the starter you’re going to use now on your kitchen counter with saran wrap over the top. Hopefully this starter will be in a mixing bowl (I don’t like to wash any extra dishes, myself). Let it sit there and bubble overnight and when it’s looking real nice, put it in the fridge and ignore it for a week.

4. Just when it looks like the bread starter is going to separate and make that icky water stuff, take it out of the fridge, mix it and let it warm up to room temperature. Then keep adding flour and mixing until you can’t mix without bending the spoon (or in my case, breaking a perfectly nice wooden spoon you’ve had for a long time). Oops, you should have added salt when it was still easy to mix. I don’t know how much, but the amount I added wasn’t enough.

5. Put some flour on a clean non-porous surface and scrape your dough out onto the pile and start kneading it. You don’t have to be vigorous and I do recommend having a book nearby that you can read while you’re kneading. It shouldn’t be a library book that the librarian will make you pay for when you return it with dried dough on the pages and cover. Knead till the dough is more or less not sticky or until you get tired of kneading. I don’t think you can knead too much but I wouldn’t know, as I’ve never lasted very long at the job.

6. When you’re done kneading, shape the dough into a loaf. I make a ball of it by turning under the edges so that the top looks like a loaf of bread and the seams are on the bottom. I don’t know why this is important but all the cookbooks say to do it.

7. Put the dough in the pan it will be cooked in that you’ve put cornmeal on the bottom of to prevent sticking. I was given a heavy enameled cast-iron round pan years ago that is supposed to be for bread making I think. It is now. Put the bread pan in a Dutch oven or heavy cast-iron equivalent. Put that on top of a piece of steel that itself goes on top of the gas burner. The steel could be from an old wood stove or anything that is heavy and will hold the heat. All of this goes on a medium-low flame, and the lid of the Dutch oven should be slightly ajar so the moisture from the dough can escape and you don’t end up basting the bread. Also, you can put your oven mitt or a folded dish towel on the top of the lid to hold the heat in. Just don’t let it slide over the edge and catch fire.

8. Go do something else because at that temperature and with that much iron between the dough and the flame, it takes a long time to bake. My bread took almost two hours. Maybe I could have used a slightly higher flame, but I’ve produced too many hockey pucks with scorched bottoms to try a bigger flame. When you can’t stand to wait any longer (smelling the baking bread for that long is torture) flip the bread over and tap the bottom – if it sounds hollow, turn off the heat and let the bread sit upside down for a while – it gives just a little brownness to the top that looks nice.

That’s all there is to it. If you try this recipe, let me know if it works for you.