Baking, Books, Slicing and Baker Friends
There won’t be a recipe on this post. Instead I want to talk not only about Salt Fermented Sourdough ( I will link once again to my salt fermented dough formula here), but about my book, “Discovering Sourdough” and about some of my baking friends.
I baked up another batch of Salt Fermented Sourdough today, using the formula on the above link. There were four loaves, weighing 1 lb 4 oz each. I made so much dough that I will be able to experiment with baking three more loaves tomorrow after allowing the dough to ferment another night.
This bread is so showy and tastes so good. I love the feel of the dough when working with this bread too, as it is so silky, stretchy and soft, with a nice bounce. I shared a loaf with a sick friend, and I am taking a sliced loaf tonight, to a suicide prevention group I belong to.
As you can see,I have a hard time slicing sourdough, as I am sure many of you do. What I need is a large selection of very sharp knives as my knives keep getting used in ways they should not be, like slicing something while it is setting in a pan etc. Maybe if I hid a knife…. hmmm….
My friend and fellow baker Mike Avery has a bread slicing video to help you with that skill on his site, “Sourdough Home.” He and I have linked back to each other’s sites for years. He has been very supportive about my having to take my book down from my site. Thank you Mike.
I also wanted to thank all of you who wrote and offered support and kind words once you knew I had to take my book down from my site. I am hoping it will be available again soon. It amazes me that there have been thousands of downloads of those files and I am getting emails from all over the world, especially from the Soviet Union area. I am guessing that is because of my friend and fellow baker Mariana Aga posted about the book on her wonderful bread blog (written in Russian, you can use google translator to read it).
Another baker friend who has always been so kind and who has been supportive at this time is Susan Tenney. She has one of the most highly awarded and popular bread sites on the internet, I aspire to have as nice a blog as she has. It is called “Wild Yeast,” although I am sure most of you don’t need an introduction. She always has terrific breads baking.
Then there is my friend Peter Reinhart, he has a new book in the works which has to do with gluten and sugar free recipes. To see what he is up to, check out his weblog .
Peter’s newest book, “Artisan Breads Every Day,” is selling quite well, it has some great recipes. He was kind enough to list my site, Northwest Sourdough in the resource section of his book. He is a really nice man, he didn’t tell me he was going to do that, and when I contacted him with my shock over it, I just knew he was laughing. Thanks Peter.Good luck on your new book.
Peter also has a brand new pizza site called, Pizza Quest at the Forno Bravo site, which you really should go check out. Leave him a message when you get there and help launch the site.
So… here are some more pictures from the Salt Fermented Sourdough, which by the way, is an easier formula than the one in my book, “Discovering Sourdough.” I was able to get the seed dough down to five days instead of two weeks and it does not use diastatic malt, so you might want to try it out (link is at the beginning of this post).
Those of you that have followed my blog for years, know that the Motherdough and Salt Fermented Breads have been my holy grail. I so love the blistered crispy crusts and sour tangy flavor with the soft open crumb.
When I started my sourdough journey in 2004, it was what I was after. I had no idea I would have such a good time and meet so many friends with the same obsession. It has been so much fun! Thank you all!
Teresa