Sweet Thursdays: Daring Baker December 2011: Sourdough Challenge, Russian Rye Bread

Our Daring Bakers Host for December 2011 was Jessica of My Recipe Project
and she showed us how fun it is to create Sour Dough bread in our own kitchens! She provided us
with Sour Dough recipes from Bread Matters by AndrewWhitley as well as delicious recipes to use
our Sour Dough bread in from Tonia George’s Things on Toast and Canteen’s Great British Food!

One of the hardest things about this challenge for me was the timing. With travel to a mid-month wedding, I ended up having to start making the dough at home, and carrying it with me to and from Christmas at my in-laws house, a four and a half hour drive away. Because of this, I didn't really get any pictures of the process, but I do have some of the end product.

Of the three recipes provided, I opted for the Russian Rye bread because of the time needed to make the dough, and for taste. Personally, I don't like sourdough bread, but I'm always up for a challenge.

The first several days of the recipe included adding rye flour and water. Unfortunately I didn't read the recipe closely, and didn't realize it was supposed to be warm water until the third day. Because of this, and the timing with the holiday, I did an extra day of adding flour and water to the starter mix.

Day six had me make production sourdough with the starter, and a lot more water and flour. The final day I made a dough using this production sourdough (I ended up using the whole thing, as somehow I ended up short of the 2 1/2 projected cups), more flour, salt and water. The dough went in a pan, and then was allowed to rise one final time.

The dough was more runny than most bread doughs I've worked with, and it didn't rise as well as I expected, but this could be due to several factors, including the flour I was working with (rye, not dark rye), the water temperature, and my impatience to get the bread in the oven.

The bread baked for an hour, and after more than a week, I finally had bread.

Russian Rye Bread

The bread didn't rise much.

Easy as...

The second requirement for the Daring Baker Challenge was to make a recipe that showcased the bread. I used one of the provided recipes, Garlic and Oregano Roasted Mushrooms on Toasted Sourdough, and served it as a snack on New Year's eve.

The toppings for the bread included red onion, mushrooms, garlic, fresh oregano, olive oil, salt and pepper, roasted, and placed on top of toasted, buttered (Earth Balance) sourdough. I smelled the vegetables before they were done, and I knew this was going to be a great dish. It was a little hard to eat, since the onion slices were so large, but I think the flavors really went well with the sourdough bread. My sister assured me the bread tasted like a sourdough should, though I still personally find this kind of bread bitter, and so I'll probably be throwing out the remainder of my starter, rather than using it again.