March 21 Is National French Bread Day

[Sherman A1]

[Major Nikon]

1. I'll be baking two French style sourdough loaves later today

Made completely by hand using my own starter and no commercial yeast.

[R B Garr]

2. O M G, that sounds so awesome!!

That is a goal of mine to make sourdough from my own starter, but so far all I've done is read about it. Do you mind sharing how you went about getting started with all this? I know it's a lengthy process, but whatever you could share would be appreciated!

I imagine you were a fairly experienced bread maker before you started on the sourdough...? I love making bread and other yeast type baking because it's just so fun to work with the dough. Like magic almost the way things take shape. Commercial yeast? You mean the packets in the store?

Happy French Bread Day to everyone. I've never heard of it before, but cheers!

[Major Nikon]

3. I've been making bread for a long time

As far as yeast goes, there is commercial yeast which is a monoculture of a particular strain of yeast. Then there's wild yeast or natural yeast that you can culture with a sourdough starter, AKA levain. With wild yeast you get many different strains of yeast which gives many different flavors to the bread. The wild yeast spores are already in the flour (provided you are using unbleached flour). To start a culture, all you need to do is mix flour and water in equal parts by weight. 24 hours later and each day thereafter, you throw most of the culture away and feed with fresh flour and water (always in equal parts by weight). I like to start out with mostly whole wheat flour and after a couple of days switch to mostly white flour (unbleached). It takes about a week to get your culture going well enough to make bread.

[R B Garr]

4. Thanks for your reply!

I figured you had to be a pretty experienced bread maker to tackle sourdough so confidently as it seemed in your post. It's a vast subject, and I admit my eyes glaze over when I read about the yeast and starter methods. I even bought Peter Reinhart's book, The Bread Baker's Apprentice a couple of years ago, but I'm still hesitant about the starter. The local Sur La Table is having a bread making class featuring sourdough, so maybe I should go so someone can hold my hand through it, lol.

Enjoy your bread! It's such a satisfying feeling pulling that fresh bread out of the oven. I bet everyone at your house loves it!

[Major Nikon]

8. Sourdough is best suited to baking bread several times per week

A sourdough culture is not difficult to start or maintain. It is quite literally a cookbook procedure. If you are using it several times per week, you can maintain the culture on a daily basis. You can store it in the refrigerator for weeks, but it takes an extra day or two to get the culture going again.

Commercial yeast is better suited to an infrequent baker, which is what I am most of the time.

Here is today's result...

[R B Garr]

9. That is just beautiful!

It looks like maybe you used one of those bannetons for the rise?...it has those nice coils. Thanks for the picture. I was hoping you might post a picture but didn't want to impose and ask you. That's just lovely and inspiring! That crust looks perfect.

So now I'm going to check up on the commercial yeast because I don't bake bread several times a week either. Usually I get some big ideas for awhile and then get distracted. You've given me something new to explore now. Cheers!

[pinboy3niner]

5. And you posted without a photo? You batard!

[elleng]

6. HA!

[GoCubsGo]

7. Good thing I made some a couple of days ago.

King Arthur Flour's recipe--time-consuming, but I highly recommend it:
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/classic-baguettes-and-stuffed-baguettes-recipe

On edit: Most of the time is spent on proofing and rising, not on actual time spent by whoever makes it.

[R B Garr]

10. Heck, I use the King Arthur flour and never really thought about using their recipes

or looking at the website. It's bookmarked now!