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woman’s blog – STARCHDATE 141126.3
10:00 AM
Today’s mission is to keep Amy and Rory alive and test our Classic Italian Loaf for the third time to check our instant yeast’s viability.
But first, the husband made me the most amazing French Toast to give me sustenance to get me through today’s mission.
Our reserves have been restored.
Onward.
11:00 AM
Morning check on Rory and Amy reveals that Rory is the tiniest big gassy and Amy is pretty quiet.
Captain Sourpants has instructed us to feed Rory this morning, while Mr. Leo told us (in his written word) to wait to feed Amy until tonight.
Aye, aye Captain.
We feed Rory 1/4 cup water and 1/4 cup all purpose… ahem unbleached bread flour.
And we stir things up.
Sorry Amy.
I guess you gotta be the girl who waited. (if you know, you know).
1:45 PM
Since loaf #2 reminded my family a lot of the flavor and a bit of the texture of Jimmy John’s sandwich bread, they have requested I try making tonight’s bread in the form of 4 sandwich loaves instead of a large loaf…
Ok. I can do this.
But first I got to see if my instant yeast is a dud, because girlfriend s t r u g g l e d to get that dough to rise last time.
Here we go…
Dry ingredients in the bowl.
Quick mix.
Wet ingredients… hmm…
I have had my distilled water out slightly warming on the seedling mat with Rory and Amy as to not chill them when I feed them.
Hmmm… I bet this dough would enjoy the warmer water too.
Oh! And now that it has turned cold, my pantry is keeping the beer colder than the fridge! I wonder if that chilled her out too much last time…
So. Many. Factors.
Yikes. I do not have the time to wait for this to warm up.
Oh! I know…
I will give it a nice warm bath to speed things up.
Now listen, we are NOT going to talk about how (non-beer drinker that I am) told the husband to get a light lager and not a mild lager as the recipe intended because I didn’t know the difference.
Mistake or not, beer is expensive. We are going to use what we got. No one has complained yet!
Beer is nice and toasty.
In go the wet ingredients.
2 minutes to mix together.
8 minutes to form dough.
2:00 PM
Heeey! She looks ah-mazing.
She is nice and formed and not too wet.
Something was definitely off last time, but it was NOT the instant yeast!
Experiment success!
30 second knead… Happy Birthday…
Now off to an oiled bowl and cover.
Set the timer for 1- 1.5 hour.
3:00 PM
Oh my goodness! she is one happy dough baby. And super gassy with lots of bubbles.
I have an errand I need to finish though so I hope she holds tight.
3:15 PM
I try to punch out the bubble the best I can and then I attempt to make 4 uniform little loaves.
I believe it is important for me to keep any seams on the bottom, so I do a lot of impromptu shaping.
Gosh, I hope I am not messing up the texture by working it so much.
Uniform they are not, but I have four loaves ready to go in the upper over to rise again by half.
I totally bet they will be ready at the 30 minute mark! This dough has been soo happy all day.
3:45 PM
Um… well she did rise a little, but not nearly as much as I expected. Hmm…
I will give it 15 more minutes.
Oven is preheated to 450 and water bath is in place.
4:00 PM
Ok… I think we are about as risen as it is going to get.
Interesting. I wonder if I let her rise too much at the beginning.
Now for cutting the slits.
The bread razor blade thing came, so this should be great! No more dull knife!
Ok… getting that little blade onto the handle was A LOT more scary than I was anticipating.
Seriously, one slip and I do believe a trip to the ER would be involved.
And, oh… oh no.
Well, it isn’t pretty… it looks like someone got really bad stitches.
I clearly am doing something wrong.
This probably would be a good time to admit that I got an S- on my report card in Kindergarten in Cutting.
I did not realize so many of my educational failures were going to come up in these bread experiments, yet here we are.
Well hopefully it all comes out in the bake.
spritz. spritz
4:15 PM
Into the oven they go.
It was a bit of a scary transfer to the hot pan, but everyone made it in unscathed.
But now I have the little issue of not knowing what times to bake these little babies.
I am going to go for 5 minutes then turn and do another 5 minutes and see where we are at.
I really liked the lighter crust last time.
But one of my biggest fears is to not bake them long enough and they come out raw.
And the pressure is on.
Tonight the bread is the main event. We are making homemade Jimmy Johns.
So… if they are raw I literally ruin dinner.
4:25 PM
In my totally non-expert opinion I am going to give it three more minutes.
Looks good to me.
Now we… repeat after me: WAIT for them to cool completely (which I am totally morally opposed to.)
6:15 PM
Bread is cool.
Sandwich fixings are ready.
Oooh! Pretty! (and totally NOT raw!)
The Results
Everyone LOVES it!
It has a great chew and is pillowy soft in the center.
The outside isn’t too tough.
This batch is everyone’s favorite so far.
But man, they are too much bread for a sandwich. No one could finish their whole sandwich.
Even though they were sooo good.
We discuss things and decide that maybe turning them into 6 sandwich rolls instead of 4 might be the way to go.
We do like the flavor and texture better than our usual go to sandwich roll.
Which gets us thinking… We last had them when the husband made Chicken Po-Boys…
10:00 PM
Time to feed Amy and Rory.
Rory is pretty straight forward. We are to add 1/2 cup water and flour. Stir, adjust the band to the new height and done.
Amy involves some math.
Mr. Leo instructs us to discard everything but 75 grams of the starter and add 50 grams rye flour, 50 grams white flour and 115 grams water.
This got wayyy messier than I imagined but I think we got it done.
a few moments later…
Rory is quite happy! He is bubbling away!
Amy is still quiet, but that is to be expected since we started her from scratch.
I think we are getting the hang of this.
Experiment Updates for Future Bakes
- We wait to feed both Amy and Rory until tomorrow night. (I am kind of glad, that was kind of a lot… I am sure it will get easier… I hope).
- The family wants Po-Boys tomorrow, so I am going to make my 4th attempt at the Classic Italian Bread recipe into 6 rolls.
- Warming the water and the beer was a good call and my yeast is just fine.
- I may want to watch my first rise next time and not let it go as long if she is super active again. I want to see if I get a better rise out of my shaped rolls next time.
- Speaking of shaping. That needs work.
- Also, apparently I still need to learn how to cut… sorry Mrs. S.
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