Thread: Mc99's Bakery, Sourdough Edition

Long way to the shop only to find out they haven't baked today?
No shop, only jungle?
Sick of Thai sugary "breads"?
Teeth falling out through lack of use?
Want to puke into the next bowl of rice you are handed?

If you answered "Yes" to 2 or more of the above questions, read on.

The Mc99's Food Science Lab has completed a years long program of painstaking research and trials, nicked alot of other peoples work from the net and is now set to offer the easiest and best sourdough bread you have ever tasted.
FACT!

Step inside for a behind the scenes look at the magic being worked in Mai Arse!



Take 1600mls of plain flour, mix it in a bowl with a teaspoon of instant yeast and 2 teaspoons of salt.
Stir with a stick while adding water until you have a just slightly tacky ball of dough.
Don't knead it! Kneading is for pre-op trannies who want to develop breasts.

I hate washing up, so flour your hands, form the dough into a ball, flour the insides of the mixing bowl, put the dough back and cover with clingfilm.



That 5 minutes of effort has probably worn you out, so leave the dough and go drink some beer. Come back in 20 hours or so.


How to make a sourdough when you have no sourdough starter?
You just did. Go take a look at your dough.



Think about it, how did they make the very first sourdough? While you have been drinking beer, sleeping and generally wanking about, your dough has been hard at work not rising, but fermenting....Clever huh?



Use a floured stick to gather the dough in the centre of the bowl and tip it out onto a floured board. Fold it a few times until it is loaf shaped, make sure there is plenty of flour under and around it, cover and leave for a few hours.








Shape the dough and place on a floured piece of foil. I'm cooking in a dutch oven on the stove so first I need a trivet to hold the pot a bit higher over the flame, and next a pad made out of scrunched foil to go in the bottom of the pot. This keeps the bread away from direct heat.








In goes the bread. Lid on for the first 15 min, then open a crack. Put the gas on high for a few minutes then a med low flame. After about 30 minutes, check the top, if it seems solid flip the loaf over to brown the top.

And...






20 min of not much work for a nice fresh hot sourdough!



Mc99's, imperfect food for an imperfect world!

I can smell that fresh bread from the pics.

Good job! Looks like a nice crunchy crust.

I've just made rye bread with the same recipe except substituted 400 mils rye flour for the same amount of white bread flour. Came out great.

No knead bread is the way to go.

Phaaaark, is it that easy? Why dont they say so?

Cheers!

^^ Definitely, kneading is for suckers. I can knead for 10 minutes and still get a sort of dry cake finish. This is the bomb.


^ Yup, easier still if you have an oven.
Bakers dirty little secret, been conning us with overpriced "Artisan" bread for centuries.

That looks fucking good....well done again sir.

How long do you reckon you can leave it to ferment?

Polish bread is the way forward these days. So is Polish lager, and ham, and every fucking other thing in my local shop.

Originally Posted by kingwilly

Phaaaark, is it that easy? Why dont they say so?

Because they sell it

Originally Posted by somtamslap

Polish bread is the way forward these days. So is Polish lager, and ham, and every fucking other thing in my local shop.

Yup, them Poles are spot on. Haters gonna be haters.

In this temp, it's done at 20. As you can see, it filled a big bowl and smelt well sour.
I've seen a recipe that says 2 to 3 weeks in the fridge, not sure what added benefit that is, and it's too long to wait anyway.

Originally Posted by Necron99

^^ Definitely, kneading is for suckers. I can knead for 10 minutes and still get a sort of dry cake finish. This is the bomb.


^ Yup, easier still if you have an oven.
Bakers dirty little secret, been conning us with overpriced "Artisan" bread for centuries.

Interesting thing about making sour doughs is that every type will be different from the next....as the dough adheres to the local climate.

Don't know of this myth that holds true about sour dough, that one needs a temperate-cooler moist "microclimate" to produce best results.

Obviously not, as sour dough types are created everywhere now.

Well done and great effort put in, Nec!!
Cheers

Nec. It looks fookin' excellent.

Why do all these Americans, harp on about sour dough...Is it a special ingredient, of which I know fook all?

Gutted, spent a fukkin fortune on a wanky bread making machine and never got a loaf out of the fukker yet!

Piss on your loaves, BASTARD !

Originally Posted by charleyboy

Nec. It looks fookin' excellent.

Why do all these Americans, harp on about sour dough...Is it a special ingredient, of which I know fook all?

Sourdough breads are the ones with the thick crunchy crusts and big air pockets and are made by fermenting the dough.
You can keep a sourdough "starter culture" alive in the fridge and use that instead of basic yeast, or you can do as I did and ferment from scratch.
Fermented dough smells sour, thus the name.

I could have taken a chunk of that dough, put it in a jar with water and kept it in the fridge, but you have to feed it, keep it alive, clean and look after it which is a pain. The upside is that if you want bead, you just grab a handful of the starter and mix it with your flour and water, no waiting 20 hours.

Originally Posted by charleyboy

Nec. It looks fookin' excellent.

Why do all these Americans, harp on about sour dough...Is it a special ingredient, of which I know fook all?

Because, largely the famed sour dough has it's origination in San Francisco [though the French might have an argument]......and this microclimate conditions that I speak of.

The sour dough breads of 25-30 years ago were a different quality [better].
The innovative science and newly manipulated fermentation process of sour dough products has changed today's breads dramatically.

Originally Posted by thaimeme

Originally Posted by charleyboy

Nec. It looks fookin' excellent.

Why do all these Americans, harp on about sour dough...Is it a special ingredient, of which I know fook all?

Because, largely the famed sour dough has it's origination in San Francisco [though the French might have an argument]......and this microclimate conditions that I speak of.

The sour dough breads of 25-30 years ago were a different quality [better].
The innovative science and newly manipulated fermentation process of sour dough products has changed today's breads dramatically.

I think history has a few thousand year on San Fran.
I'm pretty sure they were using this technique back when they relied on whatever natural yeasts where in the air to ferment the dough.
Bake enough in your kitchen an don't clean up with 20th century chemicals and soon you would not need to add yeast to begin, though the process would be slower.

Nec and Thai, thanks for the info. I'm nearly there now...


So I just leave it out in a covered bowl for 20 hours?

In this heat?


Nearly forgot. Can I use an electric oven?

Originally Posted by charleyboy

Nec and Thai, thanks for the info. I'm nearly there now...


So I just leave it out in a covered bowl for 20 hours?

In this heat?

Yup.
It's only flour and water. and your gonna cook it, which would kill any nasties that may establish, though the yeast itself will do a job on killing any invaders.

Oven is fine, I just wanted to test my pot.
475 f for 30-40min or until it looks good and the bottom sounds hollow when you flick it with your finger.

Originally Posted by Necron99

Originally Posted by thaimeme

Originally Posted by charleyboy

Nec. It looks fookin' excellent.

Why do all these Americans, harp on about sour dough...Is it a special ingredient, of which I know fook all?

Because, largely the famed sour dough has it's origination in San Francisco [though the French might have an argument]......and this microclimate conditions that I speak of.

The sour dough breads of 25-30 years ago were a different quality [better].
The innovative science and newly manipulated fermentation process of sour dough products has changed today's breads dramatically.

I think history has a few thousand year on San Fran.
I'm pretty sure they were using this technique back when they relied on whatever natural yeasts where in the air to ferment the dough.
Bake enough in your kitchen an don't clean up with 20th century chemicals and soon you would not need to add yeast to begin, though the process would be slower.

Sure...of course.
The process and technique is quite ancient.

I'm speaking of the contemporary product that we are all familiar with.

Thanks for the recipe, Necron99. The bread looks great. I want to try it, but how much is 1600mls of plain flour in kg, grammes or milligrams?

Originally Posted by Neverna

Thanks for the recipe, Necron99. The bread looks great. I want to try it, but how much is 1600mls of plain flour in kg, grammes or milligrams?

There are a bunch of these out on the web.
Cooking Ingredients Conversion (Online Units Converter) this one is average.

About 850 grams= 1600 mls unsifted flour . I use ml as I don't have a scale, just a measuring jug. Unlike cakes, the recipe is fairly forgiving with amounts.

If using an oven let the dough do it's last rise on the tray you are going to bake it on and you should get a better rise than mine as I mucked it about abit.

What I need to do is cut a terrra cotta tile to fit in my cast iron pot....one day.

I definitely will be trying this soon..thanks for the recipe.

He was only the baker's son, but he kneaded the dough.

Nice job Necron making this as simple as it can be. Wife just bought a small oven so going to have to give it a try. Love making flat bread and naan on the hot plate but baked bread is on the list.

^The method Necron is using requires a dutch oven to retain the moisture for the crunchy crust. If you don't have room for a dutch oven to fit in your new small oven, just put an ovenproof container of water in on the side while baking to get similar results.