I did another batch of those French rolls - this time I tried used the starter that I'd made instead of dry packaged yeast. The starter displaces some of the flour and some of the water, and I had to figure out just how much I was replacing, involving some guess work.
So I added 2 cups of the starter, and took out 1 cup of flour and 1 cup of water. It kneaded pretty wet, and I ended adding the excluded cup of flour back in. If I were to do this again, I would take out all 1.5 cups of the water and just use the liquid from the starter.
The kneaded dough took twice as long to rise at both stages - I don't know if I should attribute that to the excess water or the quality of the starter. I didn't take any pictures during the process but I did take a shot of the end result.
The bread had a hint of sourness, but I guess that's to be expected since I used sourdough starter instructions. Kathy says she doesn't notice any sour flavour at all.
It's probably because I've been re-mixing in the clear alcohol-smelling liquid that comes out on top of the starter as instructed. (The liquid is called hooch.) I wonder if I can minimize that sour taste if I get rid of the hooch instead of mixing it back in.
I was a little worried at first about if it was just plain "gone bad" but I ate half a bun last night, and I didn't end up in the hospital. I ate another one in the morning after toasting and it was not too bad either... Toasted and buttered it was actually pretty good.
Allen.
2 comments:
I just got the Bread Bible out of the library, so I'm going to try making some bread this week. From what I've read, the cake/pastry is very fine and has much less protein in it than all purpose or bread flour, which is might also be why your dough is behaving that way...
Yeah I read up on it afterwards and it says that the cake flour doesn't form enough gluten to properly capture the gases from the yeast.
Later on, I did bake 2 batches at once with all-purpose flour. I wanted to see the difference between dry yeast and the yeast starter. The starter just didn't rise as much as the dry stuff did.
Post a Comment