Levain de pomme de terre au travail

Susan at wild yeast is making me painfully aware of some of my lazy baking habits. She inspires and cajoles some marvelous examples of bread some make me...hmmm... envious or just has me drooling uncontrollably on my keyboard! Her bread baking is well plain fabulous, so I was aiming to see if I could follow her rendition of a Jeffrey Hamelman Norwich levain. Above all I especially have been dying to perfect Susan's amazing Couronne Bordelaise. I even went as far as to order a banneton from France. 

I mention Susan because she reminds me of something that happened last week. It was inspired by a recent forum discussion on Graham Prichard's site, about terms in baking. Bread is basically three elements; water, flour and salt generally speaking, and in this mish mash world with all sorts of European baking terms thrown into Americas baking renaissance there is a whole bunch of anxious home bakers kinda following a myriad of methods and techniques like a bad diet! This of course includes yours truly, not because I don't know how to bake. It's just that I want to bake all the time and all kinds of flours,starters and formulas are racing in my head. This brings up adding fruits, vegetables or what other matter into the mix of creating a leaven.

So later in the week, ignoring orthodoxy, (John Downes, cursing me!) I started a loaf by following standard equal 1.1 flour-water, except I threw in a patate! (Potato), grated 5 oz and topped off the rest with water to make 8 oz total and added to it 8 oz flour, let sit 24 hours, and waited....Next day not a lot of movement but I persevered and fed the beast, removing 3/4 of the leaven, adding in the same amount of flour and water...this time the leaven sat over a two day period as we were closed on the weekend. On Monday I looked at the blob bubbling in my bucket, thinking "it's alive!" My breakfast cook looked at me like I was nuts and made a face at the gooey looking monster. I fed it again, and then again that evening. I figured if I am working all these hours and my breads have been less than perfect let me see what I can do while at work, monitoring and gaining my baking prowess again!

The next morning I went on the net to look for a dough to make, Nils my Aachen baking friend, had one of Dan Lepard's breads on view, a friendly oat and apple bread. With minimal range in flour, I set to task and realized it was going to be tricky to perform this baking feat with service looming! What came out of this first attempt wasn't the cleanest of breads, but it made me consider feeding the leaven a bit more so it could get some strength, yesterday I looked up the Norwich levain and proceeded to knead, rise, and fold all in between lunch service. Realizing a problem of baking the same day I proceeded to shape and leave the dough to proof about 1.5 hours and retarded it over night. Et voila! Success, at last, tasty and well felt marvelous about not having to rush home during an afternoon break to see if I can make a decent loaf work then get back for another dinner rush. Thanks Susan, Nils, Graham, for making me less lazy and appreciate baking like I really know how!

Comments

[Jeremy]

Susan, I just made some pistolets, flutes or whatever you want to call them with your Norwich dough they have little points. Love the idea you used anise with your currant bread, it's a favorite of mine.

Nils, rye more sour, hmmm, will be watching for developments. Good to see you have given in to the sunflowers!

[Nils]

What a healthy looking sourdough loaf, Jeremy. Yes, Susan's breads are always great to behold.

Will try retarding a couple of sourdough loaves too, soon. I would like my rye breads to be a little more sour.

Regards

[Susan]

You did good, patate or not ;-)