So, this morning rolled around … at about 4:00 am. Don’t know why, but I was wide awake, so … bread. 9 loaves. 4 loaves of whole wheat (well, my version, anyway, with flax seeds, oat bran, quinoa flour, etc.), and 5 loaves of sourdough olive.
And, of course, after getting everything set up, getting the first batch into pans to rise, and getting the sourdough out and fed and back into the fridge … I realize that I don’t have enough flour. And that the stupid store doesn’t open until 6:00.
However, we are a household of experimental foods, and it’s not like we don’t have other flour, so the olive loaves ended up being at about a ratio of:
- 1x King Arthur Whole Wheat
- 2x King Arthur All Purpose Wheat
- 2x Quinoa Flour
- 2x Potato Flour
- 2x Oat Bran
- 0.25x Vital Wheat Gluten
Of course, that’s just the flour; the wet was 2 cups sourdough starter, 2 cups warm water (to get the starter happy), and one mini-bottle of wine (don’t remember what varietal, but it was red, from Sutter, Napa Valley). Oh, and of course about a pound of black olives. And commercial yeast, and a teaspoon of salt.
All in all a successful experiment. The sourdough loaves ended up wonderfully crusty, and you can really tast the potato flour when you add butter. There’s still the bitter of the olives, of course, but it’s somewhat mitigated by the potato flour. I’m sure that it’ll mature a bit more (after all, we ate it straight from the oven, at 6:45 am), but the cell walls were well developed, so there was enough gluten present, and the crust was thick enough to give crunch but not too thick to cut, and everything was quite tender inside.
Now, to a day of work. And then, perhaps, this evening to bed early to make up for it.
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