Wednesday, 16 August 2017

Lost in Translation with Tutmanik and Sirene (BBB August 2017)

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Bread Baking Babes August 2017 summary: тутманик с Готово Тесто (Tootmanik s Gotovo Testo – Tutmanik with Ready-made Dough); attempting the impossible; experiment with wild yeast; over-rising; hazards of adjusting the recipe too much; fun with shaping; a Bread Baking Babes project;

Bulgarian Cheese Bread (BBB) Bread Baking Babes (BBB) August 2017: Tootmanik

F is for Fail. Although, perhaps this is a Conditional Pass….

тутманик с Готово Тесто (Tutmanik s Gotovo Testo): Depending on which Bulgarian words follow it, the meaning in Google Translate for “Tutmanik” is alternately “Tartman”, “Tutankhaman” or “Toutman” (whatever that is!)
Сирене (Sirene): Google Translate seems to have less difficulty with this and simply suggests “cheese”

A few years ago when I was wandering around the world in my other life as a strategy consultant, the team and I kept getting taken out for Italian food. […] In Bulgaria, much to our delight, we were taken out for Bulgarian food and it was memorably delicious. Especially the bread. Cheese, bakey yum yums. Need I say more.
 
– Jane Mason, The Book of Buns

Well. What can I say (aside from “Fail”) about the Bulgarian Cheese bread I made by not quite following Jane Mason’s instructions?

Except that… it smells good….

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Thursday, 10 August 2017

2nd Try at Jane Mason Sourdough: Sudden Change of Direction

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summary: second try at making Jane Mason Sourdough Bread: Fail!; new pet refuses to play; learning patience; getting inspired by “Taste of Persia” by Naomi Duguid; there’s a reason for eating by candlelight; khinkali stuffed with mushrooms to the rescue; great new condiment: ajika; reminiscing about “Anything Can Happen” by Papashvily;

khinkali Now that the major disappointments with our Jane Mason starter are finished (I hope) and we have decent wild yeast bread at last, I feel strong enough to recount the woeful tale of what happened with my 2nd Try to make significantly less sour bread, playing with our new pet given to us by Jane Mason.

I think I know where I went wrong and why the bread became so sour. It had to be those 24 hour periods of resting for “8-12 hours”. We’ll try again soon and report back.
 
– me, blog from OUR kitchen, ISO not-sour Sourdough: We’re getting closer…,
Chalk it up to experience and be a bit more patient next time.
 
– Jane Mason, All You Knead is Bread, p23

Excited about making bread with the bubbling starter, I eagerly mixed more dough, this time making enough for just one loaf.

Ha. By afternoon, it was clear that nothing was happening with the dough I had put together that morning. Not even close. It just sat like a murky glob. No bubbles. No motion. Its most significant trait was to smell sour. Clearly, this turbid sludge was NOT going to turn into anything that would create bread.

Aside from filling our kitchen green bin with the sticky mess, what could be done with it? We racked our brains. (continue reading →)

Wednesday, 9 August 2017

Tartine Bread: 3rd time’s the charm (and 4th and…)

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Tartine Bread summary: recipe for Tartine Bread; 3rd try is the charm; only major change was to use Jane Mason’s starter; how freeing it is to not have anything to toss away; too many pictures to choose from; joys of having happy pets;

After the recent successes with natural yeast (it turns out that even I, a repeat offender of saccharomycicide (2008, 2012), can be remediated!), I decided to try Tartine Bread again. But with Jane Mason’s starter.

Tartine Bread Success

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Thursday, 3 August 2017

5th try lucky!

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summary: recipe for Jane Mason Wild Bread; 5th try at making not-sour bread using the Jane Mason’s liquid levain; trying a different bread recipe, based on one in “Homemade Sourdough” by Jane Mason; using stronger flour; kneading with ‘slap and fold’ and ‘stretch and fold’ techniques; overnight refrigeration of shaped bread;

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;

sourdough bread Let the bells ring out again! Loud and clear! I’m never making sourdough, ever again!

I avoid referring to my naturally leavened breads as sourdough because too many people associate sourdough with breads that are indeed sour in flavor and sometimes leave a sharp, vinegary aftertaste. In France, sour bread is probably considered a fermentation mistake, while in San Fransisco, it’s a well-appreciated taste […] My preference is for complex flavors from the grain and fermentations that are subtle, in balance, and not sour.
 
-Ken Forkish, “Understanding Levain”, Flour Water Salt Yeast, p.122

That’s right. I’m not going to call that bubbling sludge in the jar in the fridge a “sourdough starter” any more.

Here are its new names: “Levain”, “Wild yeast”, “Natural starter”, “Sludge” and “Pet”. But never “sourdough”. Ever again. Shakespeare was wrong. That which we called sourdough starter was giving our bread the wrong idea when it heard the word “sour”. (continue reading →)