When I bake bread in the winter, and the house temperature is cooler, I have a heating pad that I wrap around the bowl to keep the dough warm. Not too warm, I turn it only to the lowest setting, but even that small amount of heat makes the sourdough happy. The heating pad was designed for human backs, but works quite well wrapped around a bowl.
I’ve been working on my sourdough scoring, a leaf pattern in particular, and I am pleased with the latest result. The leaves look like leaves, and there are sourdough “ears” that indicate there has been proper rise in the dough.
To make this shape, I use the lame (a razor blade on a handle) to cut a deep sinusoidal line across the top. The second and third cut are also deep and define the outside of the leaves. The last cuts, the leaf veins, are shallow.
I suppose I should work on another pattern now, but, leaves. I am fond of leaves.
I’ve continued to make sourdough bread about every other week. Mostly I stick to rye since it has a lower glycemic index than white bread, even using heritage wheat, but the kids like the white sourdough, so it is still in rotation. My recipes don’t change, but I have been trying to perfect a leaf cut for scoring the bread.
I’ve found that if I make a deeper large sinusoidal cut, then shallower cuts for leaf veins, the leaves sometimes lift up from the surface and look more like actual leaves. If I can manage to free the leaf tip, but leave the other end connected, I get a neat “stem” effect too. Neither of the pictured loaves have all my desired elements. I need to keep practicing.
Sourdough baking presents me with a different kind of blank canvas: the smooth surface of dough, with the lame blade as my brush.
Sourdough is scored to give the bread room to rise in the oven, and there are some amazing bakers doing intricate and beautiful cut designs that utilize different depths of cut to achieve their vision. I’m still learning control, so I am emulating the cuts of others to learn technique.
I have much to learn, but the process is enjoyable, and the results, no matter how wonky, are edible.
I decided to make two loaves of rye bread; one using a yeast recipe, one with sourdough starter. Shockingly, both loaves came out well (could it be that I am getting the hang of this?!?).
The sourdough rye won the test, hands down. The aeration was better, the taste was better, and it stayed fresher longer. (Both loaves were placed cut side down on the cutting board for storage.)
The recipe for the sourdough rye came from the book Sourdough Cookbook for Beginners by Eric Rusch & Melissa Johnson. This is definitely a book I’ll keep!
Critters and Craft 