I had a wonderful time in Belgium. We visited with family, ate delicious things, took a tour of an old, family-run beer brewery and visited Ghent. Midway through the trip I started to get a sore throat and by the time we were on the flight home, I was full blown sick. The first couple of days back home were really rough and I got a lot sicker before I got better. I can’t remember the last time I was this sick. Now I feel ok with just an occasional cough but I still have almost no speaking voice. Thankfully I don’t have too many meetings this week. I figured that it wasn’t a great idea to bake while I was sick but I did manage to feed the sourdough starters. Perhaps I’ll do some baking later this week.

I made hamantaschen last night. Apricot, raspberry, and chocolate. For the chocolate I used the fancy Cote d’Or Noir de Noir spread that we get in Belgium. It’s a very dark chocolate and while it’s a little too dark for me, Jeremie and Courtney really liked it. My favorite is the apricot. I sent a tin of hamantaschen to Elias this morning and I packed up a tin to take to Belgium. We’re going to Brussels tomorrow evening. Yay for that!

Last weekend was all about Whole Wheat Sourdough. I intended to make one batch with the long fermenting recipe, substituting whole wheat flour for white flour and adding a bit more water, since whole wheat requires a greater hydration. I started the sponge (a.k.a. stage 1) late at night. I wasn’t wearing my glasses and I wasn’t paying as much attention to the process as I should have. I ended up adding a whole recipe’s worth of flour to the bowl. Whoops. Instead of trying to scoop the right amount of flour out, I scaled everything else up and made two recipes of dough. Which means four loaves. Lots of practice is good, right? I made two loaves of plain whole wheat and two loaves of seeded whole wheat sourdough. One loaf got to spend its final rise in my new brotform and the other three rested on flour sack towels inside of glass bowls. That worked out fine but the brotform makes such a nice design on the bread, I may need to pick another one up. Here’s the goods:

I’ll have to do this again with the right amount of ingredients for one recipe before I post what the proportions should be for Whole Wheat sourdough.

I fed my whole wheat sourdough starter all night long.

Not really. Before bed I poured out about a half cup of starter and added a cup of flour and a half cup of water back to the mix. By morning it had bubbled up to the top of the jar. I was hoping to start some dough going before I left the house this morning, but I ran out of time so I had to pop the starter in the fridge. I’m going to do some serious whole wheat sourdough experimenting this weekend. I want to tackle the long fermenting recipe with whole wheat flour, try my brand new brotform, and play around with various methods in the oven.

Last night we polished off the last of the seeded sourdough by making panini sandwiches for dinner. My sandwich had Emmentaler and sauerkraut. Mmmn, delicious.

Last Sunday I baked two breads: Seeded Sourdough and Chocolate Chunk Sourdough

I was trying to get close to Zingerman’s Chocolate Sourdough bread. The taste was there but the crust was on the soft size. Baking on a baking sheet is very easy, especially when it comes to shaping the loaves, but it doesn’t get you a perfect crust. The next round of this same bread will be on my baking stone or in my 5qt Le Creuset round. I’m not yet convinced that a cloche baker is worth the investment. They’re not terribly expensive but there’s lots of reports out there that they break pretty quickly.

I did not do any additional baking this week because most of my time was taken up preparing for The Party. What was The Party, you ask? The Party was for my birthday and Jeremie’s birthday. It was our first Big Party in this house (we’ve lived here 5 years) and the first we’ve had in a very long time. Last night we had about 30 people over and a good time was had by all. On the savory side we had veggies & spinach dip, hummus and pitas, salsa, black bean dip, guacamole, and tortilla chips, tapenade, crackers, and a variety of cheeses, spinach pies, mozzarella cheese sticks, and garlic cheese crostini. For the sweet stuff we had my sweet & spicy pecans, peanut and regular M&Ms, a big birthday sheet cake, and a giant chocolate torte. The drink options were too numerous to enumerate. Needless to say, we have a lot of leftovers.

I’ve been so in to the baking part of this whole sourdough extravaganza, that I haven’t wanted to take time to post about it! I just pulled my 4th? 5th? batch out of the oven. Therefore it is high time I caught up here. Though I’m really supposed to be doing work-work.

The original sourdough – batch one!

Classic Sourdough Bread (from King Arthur Flour)
9 ounces “fed” sourdough starter
12 ounces lukewarm water
5 to 6 cups unbleached AP flour
1 T salt
1 T sugar
cornmeal to sprinkle on pans

Pour the starter into a large mixing bowl. Add the water and 3 cups of flour. Beat vigorously. Cover this sponge with plastic wrap and put it aside to work. The period can be very flexible, but allow at least 2 hours and up to 8 hours. A longer period at a lower temperature will result in a more sour flavor. – This is very true. Longer sitting == much better flavor, if the sour bit is really what you’re after.

After the dough has bubbled and expanded, remove the plastic wrap. Blend in the salt, sugar, and remaining 2 cups of flour. Mix until the dough comes together, then knead until the dough is smooth and elastic. Add only enough extra flour to keep the dough from sticking. Place the dough in the bowl, cover, and let it rise until doubled, 1 to 2 hours.

Divide the dough in half. Shape each half into an oval loaf and place on a lightly greased, cornmeal-sprinkled baking sheet. Cover and let rise until doubled. This can take up to 2 hours. Remove the cover, slash the tops, and bake in a preheated 450F oven for approx. 20 minutes, until golden brown. Remove from the oven and cool on a rack. Yield: 2 loaves. Note 2: this bread is tasty. It won’t last long. Try to let it cool for at least a little bit before you dig in.

After such a good experience with my “white flour” starter, I wanted to try a batch with my whole wheat flour starter. For batch 2, I tried a different recipe: Sourdough Bread with Yeast. I was so excited that I forgot to take pictures while I was making it.

Sourdough Bread with Yeast – also from King Arthur Flour
9 ounces “fed” sourdough starter
12 ounces lukewarm water (you may need more with Whole Wheat flour)
1 T sugar
2 t instant yeast
5.5 to 6.5 cups AP flour (I used 5 cups of Whole Wheat)
1 T salt
cornmeal for sprinkling on baking pans

Combine all of the ingredients, using only 5 cups of the flour. Knead to form a smooth, soft dough, adding additional flour as needed. Place dough in a greased bowl, cover, and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.

Divide the dough in half and shape into two oval loaves. Place on a lightly greased, cornmeal-sprinkled baking sheet. Cover, and let rise for an hour, until doubled. Slash the tops and bake in a preheaded 450F oven for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the oven and cool on a rack. Yield: 2 loaves.

This made a tasty bread with a dense crumb and very few holes, and a very faint sourdough flavor. It’s good, but I don’t know that I would have recognized it as a sourdough bread. My educated guess is that the limited sourdough-ness of this recipe is due to the lack of the sponge phase and not because of the whole wheat flour. I need to try the first recipe with whole wheat flour to be sure.

I took some of these breads in to work so that my friends could try it and I took the rest of it to GR last weekend for the fam to enjoy.

This past Friday we had a good snowstorm, which meant a work from home day. Since I work on my laptop in the kitchen, I couldn’t resist throwing another batch of Classic Sourdough together. This time I didn’t let the sponge phase last very long, only about 3 hours, because I wanted to have the bread finished in time for dinner. The whole process took about 9 hours, from beginning the sponge to pulling it out of the oven. I also decided to make one big loaf rather than two smaller loaves. The end result was a bread with an excellent, light crumb, ample holes, and a mild sour flavor. The large size was definitely impressive looking and I would do it again, especially if we were having other people over for dinner.

Of course I forgot to take a picture.

Guess what I did this weekend? Got my sourdough starter going. I have two containers – one fed with King Arthur organic all purpose flour and one started with KA organic ap but fed with KA organic whole wheat.

Guess what I did this morning before I left for work? Started a batch of sourdough bread. This recipe has you create a “sponge” with a cup of starter, three cups of flour and 1.5 cups of water. It calls for a 2 to 8 hour rise or fermentation, though mine will be closer to the 8-9 hr mark. When I get home I’ll add more flour, knead it, rise it for a couple more hours and then bake it. I didn’t have time to take pictures this morning but I’ll take pictures tonight and I’ll post with more details about the process. Very exciting!

5.3 oz container.

In a word, yuck.

I like TJ’s plain Greek Style yogurt but the honey flavored cup is too sweet, too chalky, a little bitter and all around unpleasant. It really tastes twice as sweet as real honey and that’s not a good thing. I’ve gotten through about a third of it and I don’t think I can choke down any more. For 120 calories in the 5.3 oz cup, it’s definitely not worth it. This product would be much better if it was mostly plain yogurt with a drizzle of honey on top.

I hope I’ve helped to save you a dollar.

If you’ve been watching this space for awhile, you know that I made a lot of soup and other dishes over the course of the summer and fall. I have a 5 ft tall freezer in the basement and a standard top freezer in the kitchen, both absolutely full. My goal is to totally eat through both freezers before the next CSA season starts in June. I don’t think that I’ll have a problem doing it if I stick to my resolution: no new soup. I set this resolution at the end of the season. I made a batch of mushroom barley soup during Christmas time but we had friends over and that soup is long gone. I’m not counting chicken soup, which is necessary every couple of weeks or so. Ok, so I’m not totally following my resolution.

We have eaten three containers of soup from the freezer this week: roasted beet, butternut squash with tomatillo, and pumpkin soup. I think I’m going to make some soup later today with all the veggies that are left in my fridge; I know there’s a rutabaga, a head of red cabbage, some turnips, carrots, and beets. But then I’m done. No more new soup.

Oh, who am I kidding. Yeah, that would be me.

This year I had more than double the vacation days that I had last year, due to a company-wide policy change. This is a great thing. As a result of years of rationing and meticulously planning out my vacation days, I was still subconsciously rationing my time this year and I found myself at the beginning of December with a bunch of days to use or lose. I took off the previous two Fridays and I’m taking off all of next week and the following Monday.

The Friday before last I made a delightful selection of vegetarian dishes for Shabbat but I decided to kick it up a notch this Friday and make challah.

Here’s my recipe for whole wheat challah. This recipe makes a stickyish dough and does well as a pull-apart challah. You might want to add a bit more flour if you’re planning on making braids.

2 packages dry yeast (4 1/2 t)
2 cups warm water
1 tsp sugar
1/2 C honey
1/2 C sugar
2 eggs
1 Tbsp oil
2 1/2 C whole wheat flour
3 3/4 C all purpose flour
glaze : 1 egg, beaten

In a bowl, dissolve yeast in water. Add sugar and let stand for 2 minutes. Add oil, honey, eggs and mix well. Gradually add flour, 2 cups at a time mixing after each addition. When just combined, let mixture rest for 15 minutes. Knead for 8 minutes. Let rise in reased bowl until double in size, about 1 hour. Separate dough in to two parts, shape* and place on greased pan/baking sheet. Allow to rise again until doubled in size, about 1/2 hour.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Brush loaves with glaze and sprinkle with seeds if desired. Bake 30-45 minutes until brown. Remove from pans and cool on racks.

*if you want to make a pull-apart challah, grease two round baking pans. I used 8 inch cake rounds. Make a bunch of balls out of the dough and place them in the greased pan. With an 8 inch round you’ll probably only get one layer of balls.