Breakfast For Dinner

Breakfast for dinner.  A couple nights ago.

Homemade, sourdough buttermilk pancakes accompanied by Marchant’s breakfast porkies and local maple syrup. 

BTW - the sourdough starter I’m using is from France, via a Michelin-starred chef in NYC, to Michigan, then Algoma to finally land in my kitchen. It’s about 20+ years old and enjoys pedigree and provenance. 

It’s primarily used for pizza dough but leavens a terrific loaf of bread and the best pancakes on the planet.  

Pretty good chow if you can get it. 

Raising a toast to Lactobacillus fermentation…

Indoor Pizza

Most of you readers know that we use our wood-fired brick oven to cook outdoors during the more pleasant months of the year.  This time of year we'll fire it up if we score a day above freezing and especially during daylight hours.  Baking or roasting in the dark at 20F is not appealing at all.

Recently we hosted guests for the weekend and one of the requests was for homemade pizzas.

So I prepared a batch of sourdough crust balls to undergo a cold fermentation in the garage fridge and prepped everything else with the exception of the firing the forno.  Too dang cold and I was disinclined to be traipsing from oven to house and back in the dark while balancing a pizza peel. 

So I used the new GE Profile range that I've been becoming accustomed-to .  

The bottom oven has a pizza stone and I can preheat it to 550F which will bake a fresh pizza in about 10 minutes - give or take.

And I never had to leave the comfort of my own kitchen.

Pizza!  Pizza!

Let There Be Bread

Having weekend guests we naturally tossed pizzas in the Forno followed the Packer game.

This morning I bid our travelers an early adieu.

Good thing I put the door back on the oven before bedtime as the temp was still north of 400f (called a dying oven) and I had a couple of 375g sourdough balls from yesterday.

So I baked bread.

Cheesy boules topped with tarragon plucked from the garden.

 

The Next Morning

Sometimes you have to toss a pie in the Forno at the end of the day.

Thursday evening I fed my sourdough starters and figured I'd use some of the discard to make pizza dough for the holiday weekend.

Last night I made a couple of pizzas.  CSMOs to be exact. For the uninitiated that acronym stands for: cheese, sausage, mushroom and onion.  In the pizza world that is commonly known as The Milwaukee Special.  We ate one and par-baked the second - freezing it for a quick meal down the road.

Pro Tip - Not wanting to waste any BTUs, upon rising this morning the oven had cooled to 375F.  So I baked Door County cherry scones.  

Of course, you can bake bread, cinnamon rolls or cookies too.  Forno be like a big ole battery retaining heat for hours.....

Recipe Of The Day

One of the things about sourdough baking is that maintaining your starter is akin to having another dependent.  Only you don't have to change its diaper and send it to college.  Nevertheless, once a week you have to feed it - a process of discarding half and replenishing it with equal amounts of high-protein flour and water.  Back in the fridge it goes.

On Saturday morning I divided and fed my starter.  

I reserved the half I would have discarded or redirected to baking bread and used it to ferment and overnight sponge for pancakes on Sunday morning.

It is an easy recipe resulting a very good pancake.  

If you follow the recipe below cut everything in half which is plenty for a hearty breakfast for two adults.  I used-up the last of some blueberries and buttermilk we had and served it up with Irish butter and local maple syrup.

If I was making this for guests I'd make a full recipe, amp-up the blueberries and fry-up some breakfast sausages from the local butcher.

This Lactobacillus fermentation is working rather well.  

Recipe here.

Raising a toast to Mad Scientist cooking....

Gentlemen: Start Your Starter

Friday is generally Feed The Sourdough Starter Day. 

This is maintenance so that there is leavening agent in the garage fridge. 

For each jar: 

120g water in a bowl

100g old starter

  10g Bob’s Old Mill Rye flour

 90g King Arthur high protein bread flour

Whisk and return to clean jar with airlock lid. 

First picture was noonish. Second just now- 7 hours later. 

 

Discard starter makes the best buttermilk sourdough pancakes on the planet. Great bread and pizza dough too. 

The jar on the right is three year old San Francisco starter from Amazon. 

The jar on the left is from a friend in Algoma, via a sister in Michigan, who got it from a New York City 3 Star Michelin Chef, who brought it from France 42 years ago. 

Raising a toast to Lactobacillus fermentation…

Pro Tips - you can go away for 2-3 weeks and your starter will respond well to a feeding.   I keep a batch of each in the freezer as backup. Just in case.

Use bottled water if you are on treated city water.

Breakfast

When you feed your sourdough starter the opportunity presents itself to utilize what would ordinarily be discarded.  Rather than throw it down the hole make buttermilk sourdough pancakes.

Bonus is a package of homegrown frozen mulberries!

Homemade sourdough pancakes are the best griddle cakes on the planet.

No more Betty Crocker Bisquick for this camper.

Fresh-Baked Breakfast Treat

Made these today for a cold, snowy morning breakfast treat.

 

Sourdough Breakfast Rolls

 

Starting the day with these sourdough breakfast rolls is a real treat. No kneading required. Just mix the dough before you go to bed, and you will have freshly baked bread for breakfast in 45minutes the next morning.

 

Prep Time 10 mins

Cook Time 15 mins

Total Time 25 mins

Servings 8 rolls

 

Ingredients

● 420 g high protein unbleached bread flour

● 6 g yeast

● 250 g water

● 50 g milk

● 80 g sourdough starter

● 9 g salt

 

Before you go to bed

1. Mix all ingredients before you go to bed. You don't have to overdo it, just make sure that all flour is hydrated. Cover the dough with cling film and let it ferment overnight at room temperature.

 

Next morning

1. The first thing to do the next morning is to preheat the oven to 480ºF / 250ºC.

2. Pour out the dough on a floured working surface and fold and stretch it into an elongated package. Let the dough rise for 30-45 minutes. Divide the dough into 6-8 pieces and put them on parchment paper on a pizza stone or cookie sheet.

3. Bake them for 15 to 20 minutes. They should have a nice golden brown color. Let them cool on a wire rack or eat them immediately.

 

Pro Tip

These would make for a hearty hoagie roll for lunch sandwiches. Cutting and baking these in smaller rolls would yield an awesome dinner roll.

 

VERY easy recipe that yields big dividends from your domestic tranquility account....

 

 

Kitchen Magician

We recently returned from a marathon road trip to the Gulf Coast and while we were away my two strains of sourdough starter languished alone in the dark confines of the fridge in the garage.  And not so remarkably after almost three weeks of neglect they bounced back immediately following a feeding.

The other day I fed them again on their regular Friday schedule and reserved what would have been discarded to make sourdough blueberry pancakes for breakfast and a rustic sourdough loaf.

Yummy bakery if you can get it.

Recipe here:

Start to finish 12-14 hours. Hands-on time is less than 1 hour.

385g water
90g starter
520g flour (100g whole wheat and 420g high protein bread flour)
12g table salt (to be added later)

Mix water with starter to make a slurry. Whisk the flour together and add to the slurry. Mix
everything by hand. Cover and allow to rest for 15 minutes.

Stretching the bread:

Stretch and turn eight times. Rest another 15 minutes. Sprinkle half the salt on the dough then
stretch and turn 8 times. Let it rest for 15 minutes. Sprinkle the dough with the remaining salt
and stretch and turn 8 times. Cover the dough and let it rest overnight (8-12 hours) at room
temperature (68-70 F) until doubled in size. If it is warmer this may take 6-8 hours. Wet hands
are non-stick.

Forming the loaf:

Dump the dough out onto a floured counter. Cover with a bowl and let it rest ½ hour. With wet
hands stretch and fold the dough forming a round loaf. Place on a floured towel and place in a
bowl seam side up. Cover and allow to rest in the fridge for 1-4 hours.

Baking the loaf:

45 minutes before baking allow the cast iron pot and lid to preheat in a 450 oven. Tip the
towel-lined loaf from the bowl into parchment paper-lined cast iron. Slash and bake covered
for 40 minutes at 425. At 40 minutes remove the lid and bake for 20 additional minutes at 425
(uncovered). Reduce heat to 400 and continue baking for 10 - 15 minutes. Remove loaf to a
wire rack and allow to rest at room temperature.

Resist any urge to cut the loaf before it has cooled. Place the loaf cut side down on a cutting
board for up to a day before bagging in plastic.

Good Eats

Sourdough boule #3.

 

Me thinks I have the recipe figured-out. 

And because there are garden tomatoes continuing to ripen in the garage, the other night delivered BLTs. 

Some of my friends tell me that Nueske’s is the Gold Standard of bacon. Nonsense. Marchant’s bacon is. 

And by the time December rolls-around home-grown tomatoes will be a fond memory.

 

Care and Feeding of the Science Experiment

 

Making Pat’s Sourdough Bread at Home:  The starter I received as a gift in class can be traced back through Pat’s sister in Michigan, to her daughter in NYC, to her friend Laurent Gras, a Michelin starred chef from France.  We’ve been given a gift of a 40-year-old starter that began its life in France.  Here’s how to keep it going.

Feeding the starter:  

120g water

100g old starter

100g flour (includes a heaping tablespoon of rye flour)

Mix the water and starter to make a slurry.  Add flour and stir until lumps have dissolved.  Pour into a quart mason jar and set on the counter at room temperature.  Cover. The starter should double in volume.  Then settle down to its original level.  After 24 hours, refrigerate.  Starter can live in the fridge for approximately 7 days.  Feed once a week.  For more sour flavor use starter that has been refrigerated 4-6 days.

 

Pro Tip - Top jars with a Pickle Pipe. It's an airlock. 

The Science Experiment

I’ve been struggling with my sourdough since I purchased some San Francisco starter earlier this spring.  I was not achieving a satisfactory loft. I wasn’t baking bricks but results were sub-optimal.

So I took a sourdough class at the community college.  Who knew there was such a thing?

It was a cozy group that got the bread-baking itch during COVID. 

My two takeaways were:

1.  Fold and stretch the dough instead of kneading it. Less rough handling and allow a 10-12 hour proof. 

2.  I received a gift of a 40-year-old starter that has its origins in France and landed in Algoma via a chef in NYC. 

Last Thursday there was this....

 

 

By all outward appearances a great crust, good-looking ear and a nice crumb.  Nevertheless, when tasted the following morning there were salty spots.  I made the beginner mistake of incorporating a coarse sea salt into the fold which didn't efficiently dissolve into the dough.

That's OK though.  I'll break-up the loaf and toss it into the woods for the critters.  Waste not - want not.

I started another dough immediately and proofed it over night.

 

Inasmuch as this has become a living thing I have to give this gaseous, bubbling mass a name.  The Blob maybe?  During the stretch and pull phase I incorporated the correct amount of salt using ordinary, fine-grained table salt.

Here is the final result....

 

 

Great crust, good-looking ear, nice crumb and a great taste.  Nailed it!

 

Raising a toast to Lactobacillus fermentation.....