Lammastide baking

For Lammas, I always bake a loaf, despite the ridiculousness of baking in that heat in our climate. Lammas is obviously a holiday invented by non-Texans! Yesterday, I fed the starter, and this afternoon, I'll mix and knead the dough. I'll bake tomorrow morning. Why go through this senselessness? It's my mother's birthday, and I'll also bake a cake. If it weren't her birthday, I doubt I'd commemorate it. As it is, I feel an extra pull to celebrate the feast of loaves; it's also baking I do on any day of the week, whenever the holiday falls. I'll return to the summer baking break, after this day.

Summer Baking Break

After the St. John's day, I typically take a break from baking bread in the summer. It's not a religious commemoration, but rather a practical one. It's just too hot. I'll make a lammastide loaf, but that usually only reminds me why I don't bake in the Texas heat. Lammas is much more sensible for those much further north than we are. I do continue to feed the starter over the summer, to keep it alive. Now we are in high summer, and summer foods predominate.

Baking of the Week

This week's baking is fairly simple, due to the summer heat. I'm baking a loaf of 100% whole wheat, long-rise sourdough, or pain au levain. It's not the wheat that makes it "au levain" it's the long-rise sourdough. I use 100% wild-caught yeast. In the previous post, I addressed feeding the starter. In future posts, I'll address catching the wild yeast and specific baking. For now it's enough to note that this is how I ususally bake. While I still have some commercial yeast, it will likely be my last year using this, and my last jar. Once I finish this, I will no longer buy my formerly beloved Red Star yeast. I used to prefer cakes of fresh yeast, but I can no longer find them. I never really enjoyed buying Fleishmann's after first trying Red Star many years ago. It's just too iffy in quality. Then, after reading about the Fleishmann heiress' political dealings of years ago, I couldn't feel happy supporting them, even with less than a dollar of my money. Since I don't live in the geographic area where Red Star sells it's cakes of fresh yeast, I had little choice if I wanted fresh. Fortunately, here at the cottage I was able to catch quality yeast. At first I only used it for my pain au levain, but now I've expanded my skill set. It's much easier than I feared it would be. The results are spectacular. It's hard to even try baking with commerical yeast now. In fact, I wonder how it ever caught on so pervasively. The bread is nowhere near the quality. Could previous generations not tell? Did they not care? How could this have happened? Here at the Cottage, at least, we'll be enjoying our wild, slow bread.

Mincemeat Kuchen

I used my usual sour dough starter, but added whey instead of water to make the dough. Also, I added more butter, nutmeg, a bit of sugar, all (unbleached) white flour, vanilla and lemon. Essentially, I just altered Nigella Lawson's kuchen to be a long-rise sourdough and lacto-fermented as well. I let it rise overnight at room temperature, instead of retarding in the refrigerator, as I would with commerical yeast. This morning, I started preparations to make it an apple chutney kuchen. At the last minute, I decided to make mincemeat kuchen instead of apple kuchen. The mincemeat is from before I started lacto-fermenting condiments this spring, but it is home made. Since it's not that different from the chutney, or indeed, Nigella's recipe for apple kuchen (just more spices and fat,) I'm optimistic. If it doesn't work so well, I'll try my apple chutney for kuchen next.

Feeding the Sourdough Starter

Today's kitchen task is feeding the sourdough starter. There are many recipes out there for beginning a starter, but caring for it tends to be neglected. Usually, the instructions are limited to, "don't forget to feed it weekly." I've found that nurturing it over time has been just as important. The quality of the starter I have now is far better than when it was young. I'll address how to catch a 100% wild starter at a future date.

First, bring the starter up to room temperature from the refrigerator. Once there are signs of activity - bubbling, color change, or the like - then empty into a clean bowl. Wash the jar in hot, soapy water, and allow to air dry. Add ½ cup whole wheat flour and ¼ cup filtered water to the starter. Stir the flour and water until well blended, making sure to add as much air to the starter as possible during the feeding. Oxygenation is just as important to the feeding process as adding more flour and water. When the starter is a smooth consistency, then add it back to the clean jar, seal and refrigerate. Allow the starter to incorportate the new flour for at least a day before using it as leavening. Ideally, feed once a week.