I can’t help myself. I’ve spent my ENTIRE adult life as a scientist. Experiments MUST go on!
In my last sourdough post, I had to admit that my frustrations and tribulations with my sourdough focaccia were primarily self-generated. If only I could have *known* that the pan I was using was OVER TWICE the square area of the recommended pan!!! LOL! I’ve since found an appropriate, albeit round, pan that gives nice, fluffy, tall focaccia.
The funny part is that the Basha and I have decided that, for certain uses, the thin focaccia is BETTER than the full-size, fluffy focaccia. Since the “measure the pan” debacle, I’ve purposely baked the thin focaccia to use as sandwich bread and hamburger buns. It is REALLY good, and you get to taste the fillings, not just a bunch of (admittedly, really good) bread. 🙂
Other experiments are continuing to optimize the bread and focaccia recipes for MY KITCHEN.
EXPERIMENT 1: Refining the starter
I’ve been struggling with my starter. It is 100% brown rice flour. It rises OK, but is rather slow, even in my warm Mexican kitchen. I think that the weak rise of my bread (not focaccia, it uses a combo of yeast and starter) is because my starter is weak. I’ve been keeping it on the counter, feeding it daily, but the activity/rise doesn’t peak until 8 or 9 hours post feed. Most of the books I’ve seen say it should be closer to 4 hours! Then again, I need to remember that the yeasts are regional, the yeast and bacteria can be temperamental, and I’m cooking in MY kitchen, not anyone else’s. Trust the process.
EXPERIMENT 2: Aligning my bread timeline with the reality of my starter
As my friends say, “When in doubt, gas it!” So my most recent loaf of bread was done on a totally different (read: I made it up) schedule. I fed the starter before bed and left it on the counter – about 9.5 hours. In the morning I mixed up the dough and let it bulk ferment/rise on the counter – about 8 hours. As the oven and cast iron heated, the dough cold proofed – about an hour. Then I baked it as the recipe directed – 60 min. with the lid on, 5 min with the lid off. Pretty much start to finish in a day – and the bread did not suffer for it. The rise was pretty good, the flavor and texture are good, it just wasn’t as sour as if it had cold proofed for a longer time. I’m ok with the results – toasted with butter and fig jam, HEAVEN.
Things to note with GF sourdough – if your psyllium husk clumps up in the dough it makes for some REALLY odd purplish chewy bits in the finished bread! Be SURE to whisk it into the dry ingredients thoroughly before adding any liquid! Speaking of liquid – this batch of dough was very slack in nature. It barely held its shape, and yet the resultant bread was not adversely affected.
NEXT STEPS:
Slightly less liquid, better mixing of the psyllium husk, maybe increase the psyllium a tad to give more structural components to support the rise. Also looking at other recipes, hybrid (yeast + sourdough starter) and “pure levain” recipes. Yes, I’ve been reading Ken Forkish’s book “Flour, Water, Yeast, Salt”.
Yup – I’m gonna become that kinda crazy person. It’ll be fun. 🙂
The thin focaccia bread is DA BOMB for hamburguesas!
The thick stuff is great for olive oil and salt, or soaking up “sauce”.
Tasty tasty experiments…