Ciao Ciabatta

Ciabatta style bread

mix
3 cups of water,
1/2 teaspoon of yeast,
1 1/2 teaspoons of sugar,
2 teaspoons of salt

add
6 cups of bread flour ( or 1 cups whole wheat and 5 cups bread flour)
knead briefly. The dough will be wet and sticky.

Cover the bowl and let rest on the kitchen counter overnight or for at least 8 hours.
Preheat oven to 450 - 500 degrees.

Oil a baking sheet with olive oil.
Divide the dough into four parts (maybe dust with a bit of flour). Gently shape each part into loaves and put on baking sheet.
Brush with a little olive oil and sprinkle with salt (optional).
Bake for about 20-25 mins.

Sourdough Bread in a Dutch Oven

This sourdough bread really turned out nice. I used the same recipe as in my other post, but preheated a cast iron dutch oven and its lid in the oven at 4oo degrees. When ready, I dusted my risen dough with flour, dropped into the hot pot and covered it with a lid. I baked it for 30 minutes. Then the lid was removed, I lowered the temperature to 375 degrees and baked it 15 minutes longer.

Pizza - Preliminary Perfect

We are on the quest for the perfect, chewy, homemade pizza. We are trying some slight variations of the theme every Saturday. Last week we thought we were very close to perfect. Here how we did it:

1 cup bread flour
1 cup spelt or white wheat flour
1/2 cup semolina flour or stone ground corn meal
5 1/2 TBs sourdough starter
1 TB salt
1 ts yeast
2 cups filtered water
Olive oil
2 - 3 garlic cloves
1 can tuna
1 onion, sliced
2 tomatoes, sliced
2 cups mozzarella cheese, shredded
basil leaves
Using a Kitchenaid I mixed all ingredients. The dough will be very soft and sticky. Let rise for 2 hours or until dough has tripled. Preheat pizza stone in an oven at 450 degrees. Pat dough into pizza shape on parchment paper and brush with olive oil. Slice garlic into fine pieces and distributed on dough. Top with tomato, tuna, onion. Carefully place the pizza on the hot pizza stone. That's the tricky part! Bake for 10 min. or until pizza is lightly brown. Top with mozzarella cheese and basil and bake until cheese has melted and the pizza looks done - about 15 min.

Update:
Placing the dough on the hot pizza stone is probably better, but too tricky. I now just drop the dough on the cold pizza stone (sprinkled with corn flour) and pat it into shape. Tastes pretty much the same!

Daily bread - sourdough that is

2 cups spelt flour or white whole wheat
1 cup rye flour (make it whole wheat if you are out of rye)
3 cups unbleached bread or all-purpose flour
3 TBLs salt
4 TBLs olive oil
2 1/2 cups sourdough starter
about 2 cups of filtered water

Mix flours, salt, olive oil, sourdough starter and water in a big bowl. Work with a wooden spoon until it's getting too difficult and knead the dough with your hands for at least 10 minutes. This gives you a good arm workout. You might add a little flour if the dough is just too sticky (but don't let it get too dry - then you need to add more water).

Let the dough rise in an oiled covered bowl for 4-12 hours. It takes longer for the dough to rise when it's cold. On warm days I set the bowl outside. When everything's going well the dough rises nicely. Divide it then into several loaves or keep it as one big one and place it on a baking stone sprinkled with cornmeal.

Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes and then reduce to 370 degrees and bake for 35 minutes. Knock on the finished loaf - if it sounds hollow, it's done.

Buttered Buttermilk Biscuits

3 1/2 cups ground spelt flour
1 cup buttermilk
4 TBs melted butter
1 1/2 ts sea salt
2 ts baking soda
unbleached white flour
-
Mix flour and buttermilk to form a thick dough. Cover and leave in a warm place for 12-24 hours. Knead and add remaining ingredients. Roll dough on the floured surface and cut biscuits. Bake at 350 - 370 degrees for about 20-30 minutes. Serve with butter, cheese, jams, meats, soup.

Homemade Flour Tortillas

In the morning mix
2 cups spelt flour
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
3 ts salt

Using a food processor or a knife cut in 8 TBs butter and slowly add
1 1/4-1/2 cup of water with 5 TBs of whey.

Let dough rest at room temperature several hours.
When you are ready to roll :), enlist your children and make 30 little balls. Roll the tortillas out on a floured surface. Heat ungreased skillet or griddle over medium-high heat until hot. Cook tortillas until they are dry around the edges and blisters appear on top. Turn and cook other side until done. Stack tortillas, cover with a damp towel and keep warm.

Sourdough Starter - gets things going

But how do you make the sourdough?" Mrs. Boast asked. "You start it," said Ma, "by putting some flour and warm water in a jar and letting it stand till it sours." "Then when you use it, always leave a little," said Laura, "and put in the scraps of biscuit dough, like this, and more warm water," Laura put in the warm water, "and cover it," she put the clean cloth and the plate on the jar, "and just set it in a warm place," she set it in its place on the shelf by the stove. "And it's always ready to use, whenever you want it." Laura Ingalls Wilder: By the Shores of Silver Lake
~

Making your own sourdough starter is really easy and cheap. You will never have to buy yeast again! Plan ahead though - initially it takes a couple of days before the starter is ready to leaven your bread. After that your "sourdough pet" just needs a little care every day - feeding and changing. Start with 2 cups of rye flour (works best). Mix it with 2 cups of filtered, cold water in a glass or ceramic bowl. Cover the bowl with a bandanna or cotton napkin and leave the bowl in a warm area. The next day transfer the dough to another bowl and add 1 cup of rye flour and more water to get it to the same pancake batter consistency as before. Cover and let it rest again. Follow the same procedure for the next couple of days. You should notice that the sourdough (we call ours 'Jim') will go through a bubbly stage and then calm down. If this doesn't happen you might have to start again from scratch. After a week you can use the sourdough starter for making bread. Add another cup of flour and a little water every day until you are ready to make another bread. If you would like a break, store the sourdough in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Just take it out a day before you want to use it. More questions? This site has some good recommendations and recipes: http://www.sourdoughhome.com/index.html

Update: Maybe I got tired of feeding and changing my sourdough starter every day and in summer it got also a little too sour, so here's what I'm doing now. I feed the starter after making bread with flour and water and let it sit on the counter overnight to get nice and bubbly again. Then I store it in the refrigerator. Feed it again once or twice during the week depending on the amount of starter I need. The evening before I bake pizza or bread I take the starter out and let it warm up at room temperature. The dough still rises wonderfully, the bread is a little less sour and the kitchen smells better!