My latest project, which I have been planning and researching for a while, coincidently follows on nicely from blackberries. Having made the jam, what I now need is bread! I have eaten enough crappy cheap bread to last me a while and now that even crappy bread is no longer cheap I thought I should make my own. I have in the past made simple loaves with dried yeast and they are always great but this time I want a bit more of a challenge.
After a recent holiday to France, which I am sure I will write about in more detail at some point, I lived off bread, cheese and wine. Quality, variety and various levels of sobriety helped avoid repetition. However what was always the highlight for me, after the wine, was the fantastic chewy wholesome bread. This, I thought, is what I need in my life. And finally I have got off my arse and have begun to do something about it.
A couple of years ago I found a book all about baking. Flicking through the pages the photos jumped out and first inspired me to make some bread. It is a Swedish book, luckily translated into English, written by Jan Hedh. Having read about the varying types of bread and varying ways to make them I realised that baking can be a lot more complex than it looks. Also the different temperatures, ovens, kneading methods and flour types can all such a huge impact. Because I am a student and only have a fan rather than a woodfired oven for example there is inevitably going to be limits to what I can do. So I am going to base my bread on Jan Hedh’s methods with my own shortcuts and innovations thrown in.
Yeast, surprisingly, is a must and I have decided to attempt to make some sour dough. Sour dough apparently is the oldest proving method involving wild natural yeast. I’ve read lots about how to capture this wild yeast, from leaving a bowl of flour and water out to using yeast already present on the surface of fruits, and I made my mind up on what to use when I turned the page and saw “pain levain”. As this is the traditional method used in France and uses raisins, which I found in the back of the cupboard, I went for it.
The first stage is to encourage enough yeast cells to replicate so the bread will rise. This involved pouring raisins, sugar, water and honey into a sealable jar and leaving it to ferment. As always I didn’t quite follow the recipe and used up all the remaining amounts of the different sugars at home to add to the jar rather than white sugar. From this early stage my bread should already be unique. Also my fermenting didn’t quite go to plan. There wasn’t really a warm enough area at home, a constant 30-35°C, so it took a move to my new house and an airing cupboard to really start the process going.
Today has been the day I have decided that enough is enough and my sticky soupy raisin mix is ready to make bread. It has been over a week and smells distinctly alcoholic. The next stages in my bread involve several odd names and terms but it seems to me that basically you add more flour and water, nutrients required for the yeast to replicate, and leave to prove. First comes the “mother”. She is made from the yeasty raisin water and flour. She is left for four hours then more flour and water to make the “chef”. He, once made, can then live in the fridge for a week or two and still contain enough little yeast cells to make bread rise. Adding more flour and water to the “chef” gives the “levain”. This is the basis of many different types of bread and I see it as the equivalent of the 3g packet of dried yeast that you would add to flour and water to make bread. At least I think this is right.
So my interpretation of this whole processes, which admittedly might be far too simplistic, is that I am going through all these length and drawn out stages to produce live yeast cells that modern technology can kindly make and deliver in little foil packets. But it is much more natural, more fun and creates more mess so I’m convinced. However the variations that will occur in my bread making, from temperature to the raisins I used as the yeast starter, will add a unique flavour and texture, hopefully.
I’ve just made the mother using the stone ground whole wheat flour from Cornwall that I received as a present. I don’t know why but I always get given food when family return from holiday. Anyway, that is happily proving, I hope, in the airing cupboard ready to be made into the chef in four hours. But I am going to the pub in a bit so my chef might be a bit clumsily made on my return. I’m sure it will add to the unique flavour of my bread!
The Cornish present.
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