A nice loaf
After last weeks Rye Soda bread the starter is ready! It didn't take long and was so easy, just a couple of days of refreshments (RYe flour mixed with tap water to a paste) and it was doubling in size within hours. I don't know if the conditions in South England are ideal or whether using fresh organic Rye flour is a sure fire technique but it amazes me how easy it seems to be to get a working starter.
I decided for my first proper bread I'd go for a Wheaten Rye, from the Recipe in Dan Lepard's Exceptional Bread Book. I'd made it before and it's a good compromise loaf being mainly white flour producing a nicely risen crumb but with some flavour from the rye and extended proove times.
The loaf was great, a hit with me and the OH although maybe a little under risen. One thing that did make me wonder was the use of sourdough culture and dried yeast. The book itself is great with a wide variety of interesting recipes and instructions for the home baker (such as hand kneading etc.) The only thing is that it often appears over complicated. This recipe for instance calls for making sponge with dried yeast then later on adding a rye culture. It is not clear what the benefit of using two yeasts is, does the bakers yeast contribute to the flavour at all? does the Rye culture contribute to the leaven? I feel an experiment is needed. Does anyone use both Bakers yeast and a sourdough culture in the same bake? If so why?
