Hello All
I am new, very new, to baking bread. Any and all suggestions are greatly appreciated.
I have a nice wild yeast sourdough starter going, so I combined 2 cups of it with 1.5 c of water and 4 c. flour, put in the fridge for around 16 hours, covered with oiled plastic wrap. When I brought it out of the fridge the next morning it had not risen, it seemed, at all. So, I left it out on the countertop, covered with a clean cloth, for a day. It became very active and bubbly and rose somewhat. I fetched a chunk out and attempted to knead it with a bit of flour, but it is so incredibly sticky that I'm not sure it has a future as bread...
Does anyone know if this concoction is salvageable, and what I might do to rescue it from the compost bin??
many thanks
Replies
Yea I had a dough like that recently and it made a great flat bread. I noticed that you didn't put any salt in your dough. Did you forget to do that?
I did add salt after letting it sit in the fridge.
I wanted to make some flat bread and there was a naan recipe from LeadDog but i didn't know what 166%fermentation or hydration meant, also on the recipe i could not figure out how many grams of starter was a cup. I tried to get a conversion chart, but still i could not figure out how to convert to cups.If any one can help me out, it would be greatly appreciatedthaks for any help. bmoseley
I would try something like Foccacia or Fougasse. Naan requires that you add yogurt and eggs to the dough but your dough is ready to make these other two kinds of flat bread. Do a search on here for them and you will get an idea how to make them.
It is absolutely live! Don't worry about that. Make sure you hold some back for next time and simply add lots of flour until you can knead it (leave it on the sticky side). Knead it for 10 mins or so and then shape it and let it rest until it has doubled in bulk and then bake. It sounds terrific! Go for it.
Pull off pieces of dough. Dust with semolina, flatten into a disk let rise for an hour, add your favorite toppings and cheese. And soon you will be enjoying Sourdough Pizza.
Terri
OK I reckon what you did was make up a bread dough but not knead it, allowed it to sit cold in the fridge (where it might rise a bit, but not much), and then allowed it to fully ferment to a point way past kneadable, and then try and knead it.
Or the other way to look at is was that you made a levain - basically a lot of starter - that was always going to have even more flour and water (and salt) added to make up bread dough before you (pretty much immediately) kneaded it. But it sounds like you meant just to knead this fermented bread dough mix and then prove a bit more and then bake.
The basic recipe (although I'd weigh stuff, rather than use cups) looks about right in terms of proportion of starter to new flour/water (depending ont he starter hydration), but you need salt as noted. So all should be OK (assumign the starter was active and not cold out of the fridge). So once you have mixed it you have bread dough.
Personally I would mix the salt in with the new flour and water, and let it sit for 20 mins. Then give it a knead. I find it easiest to give it a single minute of "slap-and-fold" kneads (say 20 of), let sit for 10 mins, then give it a very short knead - just a few maybe 5 more slap and folds, and repeat that rest-and-knead again, and maybe one more time as well. All up to now I do with wet rather than floured hands. It's now about 50-60 mins after mixing, and it should have some reasonable gluten development. Then I let it sit in a bowl for a further 1.5 -2 hours or so (dep on temps), taking it out every about 30 mins for a "stretch and fold", on a floured bench and with floured hands. Then I cut into loaf sizes and rest for 10-15 mins, then shape into loaves and pop into banettons (or use floured hard-cloth tea towells in bowls). I cover them with plastic bags to stop drying out and either,
-let them sit for about 3-5 hours dep on temps and so-on and then bake OR,
-put in fridge to bake the next day. Usually I take them out and see if they need more rising or they are ready to bake.
If the dough is fully fermented like happened to you, you won't be able to knead it! Everyone has their own method and few are identical, but this should work. WHat you tried well, I'm sorry but it could never work! Well something like what you did might work - that would be to have kneaded the cold dough straight out of the =fridge before it fermented too much, but I'd stick to kneading only shortly after mixing (likee 20 mins, not overnight!).
Hope that helps.
put a nice big bowl onto scale then add
150-200g of your starter mixture (hopefully still alive)
total 800g flour (I use 400g spelt and 400g bread flour)
10g salt
520g water (pref not chlorinated - let tap water stand in jug for awhile if you don't have a purifyer)
MIX WITH STRONG WOODEN SPOON ABOUT 5 MINS TRYING TO INCORPORATE ALL INGREDS
leave in bowL 10 MINS while you have a cup of tea
TURN ONTO BENCH AND PULL AND RELEASE (I use one hand only - pull a grabful and put back on pile all the way round) until you feel it getting smoother and elastic. Feels pretty sticky, but gets better as you stretch the dough
REST DOUGH (and your arm) and have another cuppa for about 20mins
PLACE DOUGH BACK IN THE BOWL AND SPRAY/SPRINKLE WITH WATER AND COVER. LEAVE ON BENCH.
AFTER ABOUT 6-8HRS you will see a very happy looking dough partially risen. (i normally let this happen overnight)
PREHEAT OVEN TO AS CLOSE TO 250 DEG C THAT YOUR OVEN CAN GO
SPRINKLE MIXTURE OF SEMOLINA/FLOUR ONTO BENCH AND TURN DOUGH ONTO IT. SPRINKLE TOP LIBERALLY WITH SESAME SEEDS.
USING A LARGE SCRAPER, CUT INTO CIABATTA SIZED ROLLS FOR BAKING
I FIND THE DOUGH PRETTY STICKY, BUT FIND THAT IF I SORT OF GET THE SCRAPER UNDER THE DOUGH ON THE SIDE I AM ABOUT TO CUT AND "FLICK" SOME OF THE SEMOLINA/FLOUR UNDER IT, THEN IT IS MUCH EASIER TO MANAGE.
BAKE ON BAKING PAPER LINED TRAYS FOR ABOUT 15 MINS
MAKES ABOUT 22 ROLLS
GREAT TOASTED AND LASTS IN TUPPERWARE ON BENCH UP TO 5 DAYS.