Bread Baking: Olive Levain

This bread is leavened with sourdough starter instead of commercial yeast.

I think this is the first time I've "retarded" a bread after the bulk fermentation. 16 hours in the fridge before baking instead a final fermentation of a couple of hours.

It came out tasting great, delicious with cheese.

Adding the olives to the mixed dough.

The 3 loaves after they sat in the fridge for close to 16 hours.

Ingredients
Liquid-levain build	oz	grams	bakers percentage
Bread flour	5.8	164.43	100
Water	7.2	204.12	124.137931
Mature culture (liquid)	1.2	34.02	20.68965517
	14.2	402.57
Final Dough
Bread flour	23	652.05
Whole-wheat flour	3.2	90.72
Water	13	368.55
Salt	0.5	14.175
Liquid-levain build	13	368.55
Olives, pitted	8	226.8
Total	60.7	1720.845

Preparation times
Mix liquid-levain build	7:35:00	0:05:00	Friday
Levain ripening	7:40:00	12:00:00	12-16 hours
Mix	19:40:00	0:35:00
Bulk fermentation 1	20:15:00	0:50:00
Fold 1	21:05:00	0:05:00
Bulk fermentation 2	21:10:00	0:50:00
Fold 2	22:00:00	0:05:00
Bulk fermentation 3	22:05:00	0:25:00
Divide and shape	22:30:00	0:20:00
Final fermentation	22:50:00	18:00:00	up to 8h at 50°F or 18h at 42°F
Bake	16:50:00	0:45:00	Saturday
Complete	17:35:00		20-25 minutes

Submitting to YeastSpotting.

Pain Rustique

This bread is a prepared in a way that is a bit out of the ordinary -- there's no 'shape' phase. After the bulk fermentation is complete, rectangular bricks of dough are cut and given the final fermentation.

The results I got were very much like baguettes. After I sliced them and put them in a bag to freeze the smell was unmistakable -- baguette.

Delicious!

Very active poolish in the morning.

Awesome oven spring.

Photogenic results.

Wide open crumb.

Ingredients
Poolish	oz	grams	bakers percentage
Bread flour	16	453.6	100
Water	16	453.6	100
Yeast	0.032	0.9072	0.2
	32.032	908.1072
Final Dough
Bread flour	16	453.6
Water	6.1	172.935
Poolish	32	907.2
Salt	0.6	17.01
Yeast	0.17	4.8195
Total	54.87	1555.5645

Preparation times	Start time	Duration
Mix poolish	18:00:00	0:10:00
Poolish ripening	18:10:00	14:00:00	12-16 hours
Initial mix	8:10:00	0:15:00
Autolyse	8:25:00	0:25:00	20-30 minutes
Complete mix	8:50:00	0:30:00
Bulk fermentation 1	9:20:00	0:25:00
Fold 1	9:45:00	0:05:00
Bulk fermentation 2	9:50:00	0:25:00
Fold 2	10:15:00	0:05:00
Bulk fermentation 3	10:20:00	0:25:00
Divide	10:45:00	0:10:00
Final fermentation	10:55:00	0:25:00	20-25 minutes
Bake	11:20:00	0:35:00
Complete	11:55:00

1. Poolish: Disperse the yeast in the water, add the flour, and mix until smooth. Cover the bowl with plastic and let stand for 12 to 16 hours.
2. Mixing: Pain Rustique is mixed with an autolyse. Add the Final Dough flour, water and the ripe poolish to the mixing bowl. Do not add the yeast and salt. Mix until just combined. Cover the bowl with a sheet of plastic and let it rest for 20-30 minutes. Then mix in the yeast and salt and mix until the dough is fairly well developed. The dough should be supple and moderately loose.
3. Fold the dough twice during the bulk fermentation -- after 25 minutes and then 25 minutes later.
4. Dividing: Gently divide the dough into even rectangular pieces. I made 3 equal weighing loaves. Place scrap pieces of dough on top. Place the divided pieces onto lightly floured baker's linen, with the floured side of the dough still down, and cover with plastic.
5. Final fermentation: 20 to 25 minutes final fermentation after dividing.
6. Baking: Turn the dough so that the floured side is up. Slash the dough with one quick stroke. Bake at 237°C (460°F) for 35 minutes, the first half of the time with steam. Vent the steam for the second half of the bake.

Submitting to YeastSpotting on Wild Yeast.

Sourdough Waffles (or Pancakes)

I've been enjoying this recipe for pancakes made with sourdough starter for a few years. They taste great and are easy to make, as the sourdough starter doesn't have to be 'active'. The batch shown in the pictures were made with starter that had been in the fridge for a couple of weeks!

I found the recipe from a comment on Breadtopia.com.

This is the recipe converted to weight. I made ⅔ of the recipe (2 eggs instead of 3) for the 3 waffles in the picture.

I recently bought this waffle iron and used it to make the waffles in the pictures.

Sourdough Waffles

Makes 3 waffles

2 eggs
⅔ cups milk
300 grams sourdough starter
128 grams flour
4 grams baking soda (⅔ tsp)
5.4 grams baking powder (1 ⅓ tsp)
6.6 grams salt (1 tsp)
38 grams sugar (8 tsp = ⅙ cup)
38 grams butter (8 tsp)

Melt the butter.
Beat the eggs and add them and the milk to the sourdough starter.
Mix the dry ingredients together.
Mix the dry ingredients to the wet ones, and then mix in the butter. Once the dry ingredients are added, you'll see that the starter gets active (bubbling). Oil and heat the waffle iron or frying pan.

For waffles, put about 1¼ cup into the waffle iron, cooking about 2 minutes on each side.

For pancakes, about ¼ cup per pancake is a small to medium size. Cook on the first side until the holes that open when bubbles pop in the pancakes remain open (they don't close up). Then flip and cook until golden brown.