Here are some bready pearls of wisdom passed on to me, and now to you, by Manuel Monade, baker. This is stage one in the baking process, a way of improving the flavor and texture of your crumb, and establishing the amount of yeast you need to use. So a little forward thinking–this needs to be prepared the day before you make your actual dough (of which this is an element) for your bread.
I had planned to write this post Thursday night, but unfortunately came down with a terribly case of food poisoning. I won’t get into the gruesome details, but I now appreciate the simple pleasure of not being in the restroom for the majority of the day.
I must confess something: I am terrified of baking. Absolutely, positively, scared to death of it. I find cooking to be relatively simple as long as you follow the instructions, and pay attention to what you are doing. With baking, I follow the directions, I agonize over every speck of flour, and still the recipe comes out half baked and half burnt. Bakers will always have my utmost respect and admiration, because I just do not have the baker mojo.
If you’d like to see some real bakers, check out Tuesdays with Dorie. Laurie and her compadres always do an amazing job, and hopefully reading her blog will have rubbed off on me a little bit.
Now, for my next update I’ll be attempting to bake bread, so of course I needed to first make the starter. Here I’ve got everything I need ready. Water, bread flour, yeast, and a plastic container. I made sure that the water was very close to blood temperature, and then poured it into the container.
Next, a pinch of Fleischmann’s yeast was added to the water, which I let sit for a few minutes. I don’t know if this type of yeast needs to bloom or not, but I’d rather not chance it.
Finally, multiple cups of bread flour went into the container on top of the water and yeast. I slowly mixed everything together with my hands until I had absorbed all of the water. Momentary panic set in when I noticed that my starter was over all, pretty dry. “Starters aren’t supposed to be dry!”, I cried out loud. So I measured out an extra cup of warm water and added it to the starter. Then another, and with that I had achieved, “moist”.
Now, I know what you’re going to say. I really do. “That looks like _________!” Okay, that was a little ambiguous, but trust me, I ran through a gauntlet of terms trying to describe the above picture. Your description most likely came up at some point. I’m just going to say “bookpaste” and leave it at that. The plastic container was covered and placed into the fridge.
Tuesday, we’ll see how my loaves come out. If you’re a baker, or know a baker, or have recently been in a bakery, pray for me. I’ll need it.
I’ll admit, this isn’t a very complex recipe, but it’s in the book, so it counts.
One down, eighty eight to go.
