Well I haven't blogged about the last few Italian breads in Daniel Leader's Local Breads, but I have made them. I just thought I'd get started writing about the German breads as they interest me a lot more! But I will eventually write up the remaining Italian loaves.
Last weekend I thankfully turned to the next chapter in the book and finally we have arrived in Germany, and I have refired up my rye sourdough starter - hoorah! The sourdough just seems to love rye flour and my rye starter always seems to fire on all cylinders immediately and has such a fabulous tangy smell to it. The first bread in the German Rye chapter is Alpler baguette which Mr Leader found in the Austrian Alps. It is nice and seedy as well as having some rye in it.
The night before I feed my rye starter - about 50g starter (whether it be rye or white - I converted my white starter to rye, but you can make a rye one from scratch), 100g water, 75g rye flour - this is the consistency of porridge and looks about as attractive! It had a party by itself on the bench overnight and the next morning it was a fragrant bubbling deliciousness! At the same time you feed your starter you also need to soak your seeds/grains for the loaf - 28g each of rolled oats, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, flax seeds and sesame seeds. I didn't have any pumpkin seeds so used chia instead. Mix all of these together in a small bowl and cover with 175g of water. By morning this will have plumped up, soaked up all the water, and the flax seed does its strange thing where is goes all gelatinous - fabulous!
The dough - 350g water, 500g bread flour, 10g salt, the soaked seeds, 100g of rye starter, (and 5g yeast - I left this out) - I roughly mixed this together and let autolyse for about 20 minutes. I did my standard 10 second knead every 10 minutes (3 times) then a fold after another half hour, then put in an oiled bowl and let ferment for about another 1.5hrs - it's pretty warm here at the moment. Once fermented I cut the dough into 3 equal pieces and roughly shaped into logs and let them rest for about 10 mins. I then shaped them into baguettes and let them proof at RT for about an hour.
Unfortunately I made the baguettes a bit too long for my oven, so I had to slightly curve them to fit them in! Baked with 5 icecubes thrown in the bottom of the oven at 230C for 25mins.
These loaves smelt absolutely wonderful, and despite their "special needs" shape they looked great too. I could barely wait for them to cool before cracking one open, and it was most delious slightly warm.
The crumb was moist, and light - absolutely lovely bread with great flavour! Will have to make again using the prescribed pumpkin seeds.
So even though the only rye in this bread came from the starter, I think the flavour is definitely different (and better) than had I made it with my white starter. Fantastic texture with the oats and seeds - YUM!
K.
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