Category: Food

I went back to my standard 75 hydration for this fellow after the train wreck of last week.

400g all purpose flour (King Arthur)
300g water
40g starter
4g salt

I started it around 6am, I thought I had put it in the fridge when we went out for a few hours in the afternoon, but the dough was sitting on the kitchen island when I came home.

Fortunately, given the small amount of starter, it was not over proofed and it came out quite poofy and pretty.

In preparation for school, we started baking bread again.

The first one was the classic Jim Lahey No Knead Bread, which basically has a 90% hydration ratio. I had never done one of my loafs using yeast per his recipe, so it felt like a good way to get back into baking. It came out fine, no complaints, but the flavor is a little flat, as to be expected with a loaf using yeast.

The second loaf last week was a return to my old ratio, slightly tweaked due to the summer heat, since we keep the house at 80 degrees and I feared it would rise too fast, it did indeed rise very quickly.

400g all purpose flour (King Arthur)
40g ground flaxseed
320g water
80g starter
12g sugar

That loaf came out fine, but my wife thought it was a bit salty (after all those steamed breads, we’re not used to the usual bread!), and she wasn’t fond of the flaxseed.

So yesterday I decided to mess with the ratios, lowering the salt and starter

400g all purpose flour (King Arthur)
320g water
40g starter
4g sugar

It proofed all day, but I was too tired at night to bake it, so I put it in the fridge. This morning I pulled out the bread and it felt good in the hand so I let it sit a little but it seemed totally overproofed as it reached room temperature.

So I’ve added another 100g of flour and hopefully I can rescue this loaf.

Back in the game I guess.

The good thing about a sourdough starter is that it forces you to make bread on a regular basis.

Or does it? You could just make pancakes or noodles instead.

But yeah, it’s been busy and I hadn’t been keeping up with the breadmaking.

So when I made a loaf today, it felt like relearning how to ride a bike.

You know how it should all work together, but the body and mind isn’t flowing smoothly.

Practice. It’s the game. Even when you got it down pat.

I’m a fan of the animal burger at In-N-Out, but that is the exception that proves the rule.

What really matters is getting the main menu squared away. Make sure each item is a blockbuster (or get it off the menu). Do it again tomorrow. And the day after that.

Once you’ve got that set, then you can play with these one-off items, or if you want to be cute, go ahead and add something on to the secret menu that is actually a main menu item, just unwritten.

But let’s be honest, how many of us actually got the main menu down?

The other day, I added a little bit of salt to my typical steamed bread mix and I could immediately feel the difference when I took it out of the Kitchenaid. Throughout the proof, the dough acted a bit stiffer throughout and ultimately came out pretty nicely, albeit a slight salty.

This time I had tried 6 grams of salt, next time I’ll try 3 grams.

In context, my overall dough is 555 grams, so six grams of salt is just about 1% of the overall mix. Just one teaspoon.

We’ve all heard canard of putting a drop of cyanide in a carton of milk, but it’s another to feel such a small amount make such a big difference in your hands.

And there is also the pleasure of knowing your hands are practiced enough where such a minor change in consistency is immediately noticed. What a nice indulgence in the narcissism of small differences!

I’ve generally stopped post on about bread, but I thought I’d share our current practice with steamed bread.

Yes, I’ve stopped doing the artisan bread baked in a dutch oven for a much simpler affair.

240g all purpose flour
60g any other type of flour
180g water
60g starter
15g sugar

So the basic ratio is 1starter : 3water : 5flour. Of the flour it is a 1:4 ratio of fancy to all purpose flour. And not including the starter, it’s basically 60% hydrated.

This ratio is essentially idiot proof. Not completely, but pretty darn close. I think I had to add another 30g of flour when I tried using cornmeal for the fancy flour.

We just mix it up in the kitchen aid, take the ball throw it in an oiled up glass bowl, and let it rise. After its risen (about half a day) I ball it back up, and then throw it back in the bowl for a second rise of about half an hour. Then I fire up the steamer, and let it boil for about 40 minutes, but too long is no big deal because you can’t overcook it.

And here’s the best part. The storage is also idiot proof. After its done, we eat what we want, put a lid on the bowl and throw it in the fridge. (gasp!) When I want to eat some more, I cut out a few slices and throw it in the microwave for thirty seconds. (gasp, gasp!) If there are a few of us that wants it, then we’ll just re-steam the whole loaf.

I had previously shied away from steamed breads due to some mean things that baking books had sneered about such offerings, but honestly I don’t know what they were grousing about. While you don’t have the burnt flavors of an artisan crust, I think the flavors of the crumb are perfectly sufficient, especially if you’re gonna dip it in olive oil or a touch of butter.

I also suspect there may be some cultural forces at play as well. With its buns, Chinese folks grow up eating steamed breads all the time, so the lack of a proper crust is quite familiar to me. I don’t miss it, and the ease of making and storing these breads has won me over, for now.

When it comes to feeding our son I’m useless, but my wife has come up with a nice system for making baby food.

Because of the miniscule amounts being cooked, we have a separate electric induction hotplate. Induction is much faster than the usual radiant heat, and the controls are immediately responsive, like gas.

Along with the hotplate, you’ll need to get an induction compatible saucepan, but given that you’re cooking little people quantities, you might have to get a little one quart saucepan anyways.

Once the food is cooked she uses the handheld immersion stick blender to turn it into a big gooey little soup, which is spoon fed to the little guy.

It reminds me of the garage apartment in Berkeley that I lived in after graduation. The kitchen was a little counter with a mini fridge, toaster oven, and hot plate. A big boy kitchen in miniature, I didn’t even have room for a rice cooker. The last fifteen years would have upgraded this neat little collection of gadgets with an airfyer, induction cookplate, and instapot.

Even so, that little guy would have made some awful food, cause fifteen years ago, I didn’t have the skill, experience, or energy to make decent edibles materialize.

It looks like wee will be veering into steamed breads for a bit.  My wife prefers them and I like them well enough. Plus, being steamed, it’s no big deal to freshen them up by steaming them again, when they literally become freshly bread all over again!

The yellow one was a cornmeal batter that my wife wanted to try out, from a recipe online. My daughter and I mixed up the ingredients in the kitchenaid mixer bowl and we quickly realized that we should have just mixed it in the steaming bowl because this thing was a really slack batter!

80g all purpose flour (Central Milling)
100g cornmeal (Arrowhead)
80g water
40g starter
35g sugar
1 egg

After having poured out the batter, I felt it a shame to waste the kitchenaid bowl on nothing, so I went ahead and made a steamed bread of my own, wanting to test out a recipe with a nice elegant ratio of “5 flour : 3 water :  1 starter : .25 sugar” . 

240g all purpose flour (Central Milling)
60g whole wheat flour (Montana Wheat)
180g water
60g starter
15g sugar

In all I think they both came out nicely and while my wife is interested in playing with different flours, I’m most likely going to just stay on the path I was previously headed, working in more and more whole wheat flour to see what I can max out on…just now steamed.

I decided to also do a steamed bread for the Thanksgiving potluck today and it worked out pretty good.

240g all purpose flour (Costco)
60g whole wheat flour (Montana Wheat)
150g water
50g starter
30g sugar

If I thought my sourdough was easy, the steamed bread that my wife has been working on is even more so.  On Wednesday morning we mixed up the ingredients in the kitchenaid and let it sit.  After I came home from work last night, we proofed it in the oven and accidentally overproofed it so I added an extra 60g of flour to the final 300g overall that we see up there.

Then I let it recover from the re-knead for an hour, took it out and put it in the steamer, let it proof for a half hour and then steamed it for 45 minutes.  I can’t complain, it kept its shape and was nice and tasty.

I baked two of these for our office Thanksgiving potluck.

The pretty one went to work.