Cooking good food makes everyone richer

Well I put the Mother I discussed in yesterday’s post to work today. I was able to create 2 loaves, each approaching 1 lb. Baking is fairly easy and pays big dividends, the majority of effort is spent waiting, considering this was the culmination of about two weeks of dreams and one week of anticipating work I was still greatly surprised by how good the bread was. If I could just find some folks to unload bread to I would be making a few loaves a day, any takers? This stuff was potent and I demolished  a loaf in little over 2 hours, goes awesome with the aioli.

Ingredient List ~ $1

• 500 g bread flour
• 130 g Mother
• 320 ml water
• 10 g sea salt

It might help to have an electric mixer as the original recipe called for about 20 minutes combined of mixing, see as I do not have one I mixed by hand and kneaded the ingredients together. Combine your water, flour and Mother together, Then incorporate your salt. You may have to dust with additional flour so that the dough clears the bowl cleanly. After mixing everything up shape into a dough ball, cover with a cloth and refrigerate for an hour.

Take out of the fridge and reshape the dough, leave out at room temperature, still clothed for about 2 hours.

You can now separate the dough, unless you want to make one massive loaf, I created two loaves from the one. You can also shape the dough into your desired figure. I created a elliptical one and a round one. The round one definitely turned out more airy and more evenly cooked. Once you have shaped them leave them to prove and double for about 3-4 hours.

Heat your oven up to 450 F prior to the proving period ending. Also prepare an ovenproof pot of water (I used a glass pie plate), this will create a crispier crust on your breads. I have read that baker’s ovens have automated misting systems in them, glass pie plate is a close second to that technology. Prior to inserting your dough into the oven slice up the top, this is something of your personal baking signature, you can make a cross, square, star of david or a recreation of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album art if you are really adventurous, really whatever floats your boat. Cook for 25 minutes with the water in there. Remove water and cook for 5 more minutes. You should be able to hear a hollow noise when you knock on the bottom of your loaf, this denotes being done.

Eat Well!