50 Recipes, #30: Pain de campagne made with wild yeast

[nonelvis]

A person on my flist has been baking a lot of bread recently, which has been making me think about baking bread, and when some friends moved away this week, I decided that this was a sign I should give them homemade bread (along with non-homemade salt) for a housewarming gift. And since I've been wanting to make the Baking With Julia pain de campagne recipe for years – literally, since I got the book more than 10 years ago – I thought now was the time.

It's actually a very simple recipe, although it does take an incredibly long time. You make a starter out of whole wheat flour and warm water, and let that sit for two days to gather yeast. Remove the crust on top of the starter, mix in more flour and warm water, let stand for 18-24 hours. Do that again, but this time let stand for a paltry 5-8 hours. And once more, for a final rise of 4 hours.

Everything went perfectly. The starter had tripled in size by the end of the first rise, and smelled foul and fermented, as it was supposed to. It bulked up again after its second rise, and smelled even fouler, again as it was supposed to. Finally, I got it to the point where it was ready for its last rise, but since waiting four hours would have meant baking bread at midnight, I decided to put it in the fridge to rise more slowly overnight.




Lesson learned: either wild yeast is too sensitive to survive a cold rise, or it was tapped out by then, because no amount of moist heat the next morning would convince it to rise further. It baked up into this sad-looking flatbread that tasted very good – like a whole wheat sourdough, unsurprisingly – but that was far too hard to eat.

I am going to regroup with a different bread recipe this weekend (made with commercial yeast this time), but someday I'm going to try this again, even if it means baking at midnight.

Comments

[papilio-luna.livejournal.com]

Yep, I have had that happen to me. I find that the few times that I'm ready to tackle a wild yeast bread I have to get out a dayplanner and count back from when I actually want to bake it to avoid the "I have to bake this at 1 AM, fuck" problem.

[nonelvis]

I'm definitely going to do that next time. I had approximated things in my head and was pretty sure I wouldn't have any middle-of-the-night baking issues, but failed to account for the refrigeration problem.

There's an oatmeal bread recipe in The Tassajara Bread Book that is looking like the backup plan, and fortunately, it calls for commercial yeast.

[haineux.livejournal.com]

Some cow orker got infected with the "Amish Friendship Bread" meme, and leaves baggies of starter in the office kitchen.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Amish-Friendship-Bread-Starter/Detail.aspx

I like your idea better, though. Figure out how to keep a starter in the fridge and make bread in a bread machine, will you? In your copious free time, of course.

[nonelvis]

I can help with the first part of your request, anyway. From The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion:

If daily sourdough feeding is too much trouble, you can store your starter in the refrigerator and feed it once a week instead. Take the starter out of the fridge, stir well, and pour off all but 1/2 cup (4oz.) Add 8oz. of water and 8oz. of unbleached all-purpose flour, mix until smooth, and cover. Allow the starter to work at room temperature for at least 2 hours before putting it back in the refrigerator.

Three days before you're planning to bake, you'll need to raise the activity of your starter. Take the starter out of the refrigerator in the morning, feed it as usual, and let it ferment for 24 hours at room temperature. The next day feed it twice, once in the morning, and again about 12 hours later. On the third morning, feed the starter early and allow it to ferment until it's ripe, about 6 hours. It should then be ready to use in your recipe. Pour off what you will need for the recipe and feed the remaining starter with 8oz. of flour and 8oz. of water. Mix until smooth, and allow the starter to work for at least 2 hours at room temperature before putting it back in the refrigerator.

... of course, now that I've typed all this in, it seems like the procedure is only slightly less of a pain in the ass than just keeping the thing on the counter and feeding it every day.

[haineux.livejournal.com]

Let's call up Alton Brown and get him to do an episode on Sourdough.

Oh wait, maybe this is it: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Proto-Dough-230917

[nonelvis]

Interesting that he's using the vitamin C tablet, though from reading the King Arthur book, it sounds like increasing the acid level will increase sour flavor. It can also lead to flat bread, and since leaving the starter in the fridge overnight is how King Arthur recommends increasing the acid level, my new theory is that by refrigerating my dough, I inadvertantly increased the acid to a point where the yeast could no longer function.

Goddammit, I'm going to have to start keeping pH strips in the kitchen, aren't I?

[kalleah.livejournal.com]

It's a big cracker.

[nonelvis]

It's a big cracker I could probably have used to bludgeon someone to death, unfortunately.

[kalleah.livejournal.com]

It's a big cracker I could probably have used to bludgeon someone to death, unfortunately.

I have a list.

[mmancuso.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of those anecdotes in a certain kitchen pirate's book about restaurants and behind-the-scenes goings on. "Feed Mother."

[nonelvis]

Ha! I didn't realize you'd read that -- it's a great book.