Why I'm googling "nonstick egg rings"

Discarded sourdough starter = crumpets.

Croissants

These are sourdough croissants made with homemade vegan butter. They worked out pretty well (though they're nowhere near as impressive as their inspiration, txfarmer's gorgeous ones). They're much better than the last time I attempted vegan croissants.

The annoying thing about the recipe is that it asks for a 3 hour final rise at 26C. I couldn't see how to make that happen and still have them ready for breakfast, so I left them at cold room temperature (15 - 17C) for about 12 hours, and then put them near the oven as it preheated. They definitely rose a lot in that time, but they weren't (as the recipe puts it) 'soft and jiggly', so maybe they were slightly underproofed. 

The vegan butter behaved nicely for the encasement step, but I was a bit worried about the first turn after it had a rest in the fridge for an hour. I think the butter was too firm: it seemed to crumble as it folded. The final dough looked like pie dough, with specks of butter, which didn't seem quite right. I wonder if it would be better to let the dough rest at room temperature for 20 minutes between turns, as in Peter Reinhart's recipe.

100% sourdough bagels

Recipe from Wild Yeast.

Sourdough bread

All through the summer, I kept my sourdough starter alive by feeding it once a week and using it for sourdough pancakes. These days, with the cooler weather, I am back to baking bread with it.

Since I got a stand mixer, I have been drawn to recipes that require one, but it turns out that my current favourite sourdough recipe is actually based on the famous NYTimes no knead bread. The recipe is by JMonkey of The Fresh Loaf.

Bread nerd notes:
-- I have been using 400g white flour, 169g wholemeal flour, and 3 t vital wheat gluten.
-- It tends to need a little bit of extra water.
-- In our cold house I have been letting it have a slightly longer rise (up to 21 hours).
-- I had some trouble with the crust burning before the bread was done, so I lower the temperature to 375 for the uncovered baking period, and bake it for 30 minutes or a bit longer. (A few times, the crumb has been ever so slightly gummy, so I am careful to avoid underbaking.)
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UPDATE: I solved the gumminess problem. DO NOT add any extra water. When you mix all the ingredients together it takes a bit of effort, and the dough can be a little dryish and shaggy in places, but it works. I bake it covered for 30 minutes and uncovered for 20, and it works out perfectly.

Sourdough bagels

I used the sourdough bagel recipe from Nancy Silverton's Breads from the La Brea Bakery. They worked out very well -- notable things about this recipe include the fact that the bagels are boiled really briefly (20 seconds) in nothing but water (other recipes I've tried include malt syrup and/or baking soda).

They didn't taste sour -- I guess this is because they spent most of their proofing time in the fridge. And they really got a lot of oven spring. Overall, I like this recipe, but I must say I have a bit of a weakness for the Montreal-ish bagels I make using the Artisan Bread recipe.

Sourdough pancakes

I love my sourdough starter. However, I find these days that breadmaking doesn't really fit in my schedule. (Or maybe it is truer to say that I am more impatient.) What to do, what to do? The answer -- if only this were the answer to more of life's questions -- is pancakes.

I've tried a lot of sourdough pancake recipes, but this is the best. It's from Nancy Silverton's Breads from the La Brea Bakery, via Wild Yeast. Unlike a lot of sourdough pancake recipes, this one uses baking powder in addition to baking soda, and it works best with nice lively starter. The end result is pretty much the fluffiest, tastiest vegan pancake I've ever made.

So here's the routine: in the late afternoon or evening, pull the starter out of the fridge and feed it enough for the pancake recipe (I've been making half batches, so this means at least 125g flour and 125g water. A half batch is just barely enough for us two.). My starter is usually fed white flour, but I've been feeding it wholemeal when I make pancakes. After sitting on the counter overnight, in the morning the starter is ready to go -- measure out the required amount of starter and simply whisk in the other ingredients (I've been veganizing with egg replacer, but I have a hunch that its not necessary.)

I wish this photo were better. I was in too much of a rush to get eating these babies, so just took a quick snap before the syrup went on and they got gobbled up.

Sourdough crepes

I wanted a snack, and my sourdough starter was sitting out on the counter, and one thing led to another.

I can't believe I didn't think of this sooner. Take some sourdough starter, add a pinch of salt, a spoonful or two of chickpea flour, (a tiny bit of sugar if you want), and whisk in soymilk until you get crepe batter. (Optional addition for flax-fiends or the omega-three deprived: a spoonful of ground flaxseed.)

My dad the expert crepe maker always insisted that you let the batter rest for at least half an hour, to let the flour hydrate properly. But sourdough crepe batter is ready to go right away. Yay for instantaneous crepe-based gratification.

It lives!

A confession: I forgot about my sourdough starter for months, and when I finally did unearth it from the fridge, it had completely dried out. Bad, bad baker!

I rehydrated it, and started daily feedings, but things weren't looking good. It smelled okay, but never got bubbly, and I thought it might be hopeless. But then, after about 10 days, there were bubbles. And now, we have bread:

I used the Natural Starter Bread recipe from Chocolate and Zucchini. I used a mixture of white, wholemeal and rye flours (about 200, 300, 100 grams respectively), plus some vital wheat gluten. One of the things I like about this recipe is that it has a long rising time -- my starter is kind of slow, and the 8 hour rise worked nicely for it. I wasn't sure about the recipe's suggestion of starting the bread in a cold oven (I've always assumed that you get the most oven spring from a preheated oven) so I used my usual technique based on the no knead bread one (where you preheat the cast iron pot, and bake the bread in that, for 30 minutes covered and about 20 minutes uncovered).

The bread worked out very nicely, with an excellent sourdough flavour.